Goodiepal udstiller for tiden på Andersen’s Contemporary. Udstillingen tager udgangspunkt i hans nye bog El Camino Del Hardcore – Rejsen Til Nordens Indre og i dag spiller han på Blågårdens Bibliotek. Seismograf har mødt ham til et kort interview om musik, der ikke er der længere - om viden, der bare kopieres - og om hvordan kunst- og musikscenerne smelter sammen.

Du har udgivet en bog: El Camino Del Hardcore – Rejsen Til Nordens Indre. Hvad handler den om?

”Den handler om musik. Simpelthen.”

Hvordan?

”Den handler om alting - forstået på den måde, at jeg har jo skrevet alt hvad jeg ved i den bog. Så er der sikkert noget jeg ved, som jeg ikke har skrevet i bogen – og noget jeg ikke ved, som jeg også har skrevet i bogen. Den handler om hvad man kan gøre efter Radikal Computermusik – men den er jo skrevet mens jeg kørte rundt i store dele af verden på cykel, så det er også lidt en rejsebeskrivelse.

Der er skrevet utroligt meget musik ind i bogen, så man kunne godt kalde det samling nye værker. Men det, der er specielt ved de værker er, at mange af dem ikke længere er eksisterende. I bogen hører man hele tiden om værker, der af den ene eller den anden grund ikke længere findes – de er måske faldet sammen, eller forsvundet eller noget helt tredje. Det er fordi jeg mener, at de store komponister er døde. I dag er man nødt til at pakke sin musik ind på en anden måde, så derfor handler bogen også om at kryptere. Der er utrolig meget viden, der er krypteret i bogen.

Det hænger også sammen med at folk efterhånden bare citerer og citerer. Vi har Wikipedia som det bedste eksempel. Det er jo ikke svært at vide noget om kvantefysik, det kan man læse på Wikipedia – men det er svært at sige noget nyt om kvantefysik. For eksempel den der ’videnskunst’, der bliver lavet nu, den byder jo ikke på ny viden.”

Du har været væk et stykke tid og nu er du tilbage – hvorfor det?

”Jeg har altid kommet lidt tilbage - og jeg er heller ikke kommet mere tilbage end som så. Men nu har jeg jo en udstilling i Danmark på Andersen’s Contemporary. Bogen har sådan set været ude et stykke tid, men det kræver en udstilling i Danmark, før der er nogen der gider at forholde sig til, at jeg har lavet en bog. Faktisk har jeg været i Danmark ind imellem hele tiden. Jeg lå med et brækket ben i tre måneder i Danmark for et års tid siden.”

For mig at se har du i de senere år nærmet dig galleriscenen. Er det en mere interessant scene for dig end musikmiljøet?

”De hænger sammen. Det bliver sværere og sværere at skelne det ene fra det andet. Det er stadig musik det handler om. Jeg har beskæftiget med musik, der har været så højtravende, at den danske musikverden ikke gider at røre ved det. I rytmiske musikkredse har jeg nærmest været hadet – mens kunstkredsene har sagt: ”Nej, hvor spændende”. Så jeg er gået derhen hvor der har været interesse. På den måde er det jo virkelig rock’n’roll – jeg er bare taget derhen, hvor det næste gig har været. Men jeg kan da godt se på de folk der kom til udstillingsåbningen, at nu var det langt væk fra musikmiljøet. Nu var det kunstnerne og alle forfatterne – der var simpelthen ikke en komponist eller rytmisk musiker til stede. Og på den måde må jeg erkende, at mit popmusikertække er faldende.

Men der er sket en interessant udvikling over de sidste 15 år. For eksempel sidder der i dag rigtig mange på kunstakademierne, der arbejder med lyd, og i de seneste par år har der også været mange installatoriske ting på musikscenen. Så det er beskrivende for hvor det hele er ved at bevæge sig hen, og det er mere en tendens end det har noget med mig at gøre. Måske er to højttalere og konceptalbummets dage bare talte. Jeg synes langt de fleste musikere har referencer, der peger tilbage, og derfor peger på noget der i bund og grund er uopnåeligt. Og det er måske lidt svært for musikken at acceptere, at det er sådan. Men jeg er ikke den eneste, der beskæftiger sig med musik, som er røget over mod galleriscenen. Så i stedet for at tale om et personligt opgør, vil jeg hellere se det som en tendens. Der vil jo altid være en brydning de forskellige kunstarter imellem. Der er altid en ping-pong.”

I dag kl. 17 skal du så optræde på Blågårdens bibliotek – hvad kan vi forvente os af det?

”Jeg præsenterer bogen – og så spiller jeg nogle af de værker der ikke findes mere – som musik. Og så kan man vel låne bogen, nu man er på biblioteket.”

in brieflive
26.08.2024

Hooray! The Big Questions Are Still Alive in Opera

Copenhagen Opera Festival: Rolf Hind, Dante Micheaux and Jalal al-Din Rumi, Frederic Wake-Walker, Elaine Mitchener, James Hall, Yannis François, Loré Lixenberg a.o.: »Sky in a Small Cage«
© Ida Guldbæk Arentsen
© Ida Guldbæk Arentsen

If one had come to believe that new opera could only be starkly realistic portrayals of the world’s decay, Sky in a Small Cage at the Copenhagen Opera Festival would quickly prompt a rethink. The festival’s final work pointed in a completely different direction: mysticism, hope, love. All clichés, perhaps – but absolutely not in the hands of composer Rolf Hind and librettist Dante Micheaux. Together they have spun a truly astonishing opera about the Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi.

It was as much the enchantment of Rumi’s poetry as the myth of the poet himself that drove the work. In fact, it was exhilaratingly difficult to distinguish between poetry and reality: the character Rumi became the object of his own grand poetic art. »It might as well be called a death: the gate you must go through to enter yourself or beloved,« sang a narrator-like figure at the outset. Love, one understood, is a self-annihilating transgression – a threshold phenomenon that at times demands its sacrifices.

This dreamlike doubleness served as a guiding principle throughout the performance. It was a pleasure to hear mysticism unfold in the music, which was phenomenally orchestrated with dripping gamelan bells and singing bowls, double harps, celebratory piano, and more pounding toms than Lars Ulrich would dare to dream of.

And what about the bird, the cage, and the idea of freedom? In Sky in a Small Cage, freedom was not a matter of opening the cage and setting the bird free. It was located in the very act of calling – in song, music, and poetry – as a reaching out toward the other in a kind of intoxication of love. Oh yes, the big questions are still alive in opera. Thank God.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

© PR

»Music has always provided me with a clear pathway on which to navigate a meaningful life. It is imbued with a set of noble intentions that have taught me important lessons: the art of giving and receiving, how to grapple with the ever-shifting forces of tension and peace, what it is to trust the people who surround you, and the ability to let go.«

The Irish-born, Denmark-based composer-musician Carolyn Goodwin is a clarinetist and saxophonist, and the founder of Copenhagen Clarinet Choir. Her compositional work is driven by a desire to explore new frontiers in ensemble playing, bringing body and movement to the forefront, and combining the freedom of improvised music with her foundation in classical music. Goodwin's 2022 release with the Copenhagen Clarinet Choir, Organism, on the År & Dag label, has been described as »cranio-sacral therapy for the ear« and »a perfect cross between intelligent and sensory music.« It is these sound and performance parameters that have inspired composers like Marcela Lucatelli, Greta Eacott, and Anders Lauge Meldgaard to compose music for Goodwin’s ensemble.

Goodwin is a member of the trio Coriolis, alongside fellow saxophonists Maria Dybbroe and Nana-Pi Aabo Kim, as well as Jason Dungan’s Blue Lake project. She is also part of the musician collective Barefoot Records.

 

© Beowulf Sheehan

»Music is limitless, and its potential for meaning is infinite. This is neither good nor bad, but simply an acknowledgement that music is one kind of expression of any given culture (with many other inputs, of which I am mostly ignorant). From that perspective, I suppose then that music is just another medium through which I try to understand another human and/or the culture that they exist(ed) in, and more deeply feel the interconnectedness of the world that we live in, that we have inherited, and that we will pass on.«

Currently the only musician ever to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants – in 2016 as a soloist and in 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet – cellist Jay Campbell has brought his eclectic artistic interests both as a performer and curator to the New York Philharmonic, Deutsche-Symphonie Orchester, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Ojai Festival, Lucerne Festival and many others. Deeply committed to collaborative music, Jay is a member of the JACK Quartet, as well as the Junction Triowith violinist Stefan Jackiw and composer/pianist Conrad Tao, multidisciplinary artist collective AMOC, and frequently works with composers and performers like Helmut Lachenmann, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Barbara Hannigan, John Zorn, Tyshawn Sorey, and many more from his own generation. 

in brieflive
05.07.2024

A World of Contrasts – and a Touch of Smurf Vocals

Roskilde Festival: Slauson Malone 1
© PR

The cello is everywhere at this year’s Roskilde Festival. Some use it as just about anything else – hey, now it’s an electric bass, or how about a keyboard drowned in effects – but in American Jasper Marsalis’ Marcela Lucatelli-worthy bomb project Slauson Malone 1, the cello was actually used as, well, a cello.

Marsalis himself handled vocals and electric guitar on the open Platform stage, while Nicholas Wetherell opened the concert with a motor-race assault on his amplified cello, then pivoted into plucked meditations, to which Marsalis contributed overtone playing on guitar. Sensitive jazz guys? Nope – suddenly: synchronized noise sprints, intimacy splintered, and before long Marsalis threw himself into the seated audience with a somersault – and a scream.

Meanwhile, Wetherell played tender vibratos. Because contrasts thrive at Roskilde – and, after all, seem to be driving the world forward these days. And so it was the world itself that came into focus in the music: through violent shifts between 8-bit Smurf vocals, ambient gnawing solo cello, intimate indie layered over a one-second sample of Cher – culminating in a wistful lullaby veiled in digital theremin.

In many ways, it was peak hipster era. But it was also intensely moving – something like following Mahler out on the edge of the abyss as he tried to sketch the whole world into his scores. The only difference: the easel looks a bit different today.

© Kristoffer Juel Poulsen
© Kristoffer Juel Poulsen

It is not the first time Selvhenter have shown Roskilde how a saxophone can scream. Even the most avant-garde-ready listeners were left gasping for air. It was hard not to let your own lungs empathise with the long passages and unruly energy that the experimental Copenhagen quartet excelled in, wielding an instrumentarium consisting of two drum kits, synth, trombone, saxophone and assorted extras.

And the more the band – positioned in the centre of the Avalon tent, surrounded by the audience – wove their collective patchwork carpet, the more the individual character of the instruments was erased. Selvhenter could just as well have been playing entirely different instruments. You could see Sonja LaBianca standing there, forcing tones out of a wind instrument, yet it sounded more like a harp from outer space. It was astonishing how her saxophone fanfares resembled distress signals beamed into the cosmos. Meanwhile, the drums drove very grounded rhythms: Steve Reich-like pulses colliding with freer passages.

Selvhenter inflated the tent with full-fat punked and jazzy noise. Without pauses (not even when a snare drum went dead and had to be replaced mid-set) and without water for the crowd. Being so close to the musicians was a plus; on their small central stage they looked like giants in a battle arena. This was new music that was deeply physical. For about an hour we breathed together (and perhaps even sweated?) in sync. And it is profoundly good to do something together at a festival.

Selvhenter on the Orange Stage next year. Come on!