kortkritik

Trance Thursday

RF 2023: Gabber Modus Operandi

2. july

Why Gabber Modus Operandi from Bali was booked for Roskilde's »avant-garde scene« Platform, which my 20-year-old son called the »boomer« scene, is a mystery. In 2018, when they made their European debut, it was at the seminal Berliner festival CTM at the club Berghain. Since then, they have traveled around the world and were featured on Björk's new album in autumn 2022.

The music and the trance party, on the other hand, went straight in – a mix of new and previously released tracks, all produced by Kasimyn and spiced up by Ican Harem with his wild performance. The tracks provide the foundation to the trance, but it is Harem who controls it with song, recitation and growl and with an insistent audience address primarily in Indonesian.

It was loud and intense, and the trance-happy festival audience, who had turned up in large numbers, had plenty of opportunity to dance. The individual character of the tracks is found in characteristic and slower pentatonic themes played by samples that sound like slompret (Javanese wind instrument, as in the track Sandikala), bonang (small gong) and synth (Genduwuro), and Indonesian song/speech (Hey Nafsu). A local Indonesian jumble woven into a global borderless music machine.

Jathilan is the name of an Indonesian ritual dance in which knights on reed horses travel out to defend the sultan, but along the way are possessed by the spirits of the forest. Jathilan is currently particularly popular in Java in local contexts in city and countryside, where both dancers and the audience can get in trance, which is led by a "fusion gamelan" consisting of Indonesian gamelan, drum set, synthesizer and whatever else is in the neighborhood. Everything is electrically amplified and blown out through distorting speaker towers – preferably with over 110 DB. The aesthetics are breathtaking and something quite unique.

Gabber Modus Operandi precisely finds, among many other on- and off-line curiosities, inspiration in jathilan. They too have travelled out, however, without reed horses, classic Indonesian dance costumes and instruments. Instead, they have brought us high-tempo electronic dance music (EDM). Hard pumping metallic noisy beats here reaching 120 DB. Towards the end, they invited us to sit on the floor. The trance now took form as a call to prayer, meditation and contemplation.

Playliste

My name is Ryong – would you like to see my playlist?

29. january

»Music for me is: inevitable.«

Ryong is a composer, artist & DJ that explores: Danish and Korean heritage, spirituality, embodiment, family and love, Ryong is also a member of the experimental pop band haloplus+. Across her releases, she draws on both ambient, noise and pop music, incorporating the sound of field recordings and spoken word. Having previously released on Why Be’s label Yegorka, and debuting on Posh Isolation with Isa Ryong, an 11 part work that explores transition and the anguish of complexity, Ryong has established herself as a unique artist in the experimental electronic music scene in Copenhagen.

kortkritik

Højt at flyve, iskoldt at styrte ned

Jacob Kirkegaard: »Snowblind«

Sune Anderberg

28. january

På sit nye album, Snowblind, vender Jacob Kirkegaard blikket væk fra afsløringer af vores omverdens skjulte lyde for i stedet at skildre et psykologisk drama. Afsættet: den svenske polarfarer Salomon August Andrée, der i 1897 satte kurs mod Nordpolen i luftballon, en dumdristig færd, der kostede ham selv og to andre livet – forblændet af sne og jagten på berømmelse.

I løbet af 11 isnende tableauer tegner Kirkegaard et portræt af den ængstelighed og tvivl, svenskeren må have følt, da ballonen styrtede ned på pakisen øst for Svalbard. I to måneder fortsatte de tre til fods, inden de nåede den øde ø Kvitøya – og døde få uger efter, muligvis forgiftet af underkogt isbjørnekød. Da havde naturen for længst afsløret sin fjendtlighed.

Det hører man på Snowblind. Først letter ballonen i en luftstrøm, der balancerer elegant på kanten af omklamrende mørkesynth og hjertebanken, mens en metallisk skurren a la heroisk elguitar subtilt signalerer tvivlen: Var Andrée helt eller skurk? Kort efter lander vi så i et stort ingenting af strøget metal. Granatchokket bliver til skælmske, svampede fodspor af synth, mens desperationen og hallucinationerne vokser: Var det et skibshorn, jeg hørte, en redningskrans?

Men nej, stilheden vinder, isvandet rasler som et sultent uhyre, det hårdkogte psykologiske drama levner ingen plads til håb, kun en chance for at stirre sit endeligt i øjnene. Havde Kirkegaard været en rigtig grum portrættør, kom vi endnu længere ned i mørket og desorienteringen, men hans letsvævende ambiens sætter nu også spor i sneen.

Playliste

Mit navn er Magnus Hansen – vil du se min playliste?

26. january

»Musik for mig er lyd i sin stærkeste og mest fokuserede form. Når lyd bliver til musik, arbejder alle lyde som en samlet enhed, der bestræber sig på at opnå et højere stadie. De harmonerer, temponerer og amplificerer med høj præcision for at stimulere hjernens belønningssystem og skabe en dybere, næsten spirituel oplevelse.«

Magnus Hansen er en dansk lyddesigner. Til efteråret præsenterer han udstillingen Atomic Echoes på World Stage Design i Sharjah. Udstillingen skal skabe bevidsthed om atomvåbens destruktive kraft og gøre emnet mere nærværende gennem en sanselig oplevelse.

kortkritik

Vanedannende elegance

Rune Glerup: »Perhaps Thus the End«

Jennifer Gersten

25. january

En strygekvartet består af fire musikere, og en klarinetkvintet af fem, men den danske komponist Rune Glerups (f. 1981) nyindspillede værker for begge ensembler får en til at tro, at deres antal er talt forkert, for lidt. Glerup, som sidste år modtog Nordisk Råds Musikpris for sin violinkoncert Om lys og lethed, skriver kammer- og orkesterværker, der ofte er præget af flerdimensionalitet: En klangidé gentages vedholdende i ændrede fremtoninger, hvilket giver fornemmelsen af, at komponisten udforsker forskellige facetter af en fysisk form. De to værker på Perhaps Thus the End – fremført af den fremragende Quatuor Diotima og klarinettisten Jonas Frølund – er dog lige så meget en demonstration af det ekspansive indre som af overfladens udstrækning.

De syv satser i strygekvartetten (som har givet navn til albummet) er opkaldt efter linjer fra Samuel Becketts sene prosaværk Stirrings Still. Lange toner og galopperende motiver skifter gnidningsfrit mellem ensemblets medlemmer og skaber en klang, så gruppen synes fordoblet i størrelse. Tonesproget er til tider mekanisk, men aldrig automatisk, og ligner snarere ballettens former. Glerup er en omhyggelig mester i tekstur, der finder elegance i utraditionelle lyde gennem ferm lagdeling – eksempelvis, når en harmonisk pizzicato i en senere sats bryder strygernes knirkelignende klang, inden ensemblet pludselig bevæger sig ind i stilheden.

På den overraskende vanedannende »Still Leaning Towards this Machine« – sandsynligvis en af de få gange, en nutidig klarinetkvintet har opnået denne betegnelse – forstærkes ensemblet af elektronik gennem en subtil, hakkende resonans. Hvilket resulterer i, at orkesteret i tre lystige satser lejlighedsvis forvandles til en slags paranormal harmonika. Det er en vidunderligt sær effekt, som partituret, på en lige så sær måde, leverer med en næsten alvorsfuld mine – endnu én af mange givende overraskelser på denne fremragende udgivelse.

Dansk oversættelse: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

Playliste

My name is Matthew Grouse – would you like to see my playlist?

24. january

»Music for me is many, often contradictory, things. Here's a few ways I think about it. 1. An opportunity to reframe our attention to our everyday existence, particularly in the way we listen. 2. A contemplative space that can be an escape from reality and a means to engage the senses in a unique way 3. A way to directly relate to and reflect on the world around us 4. A specific set of approaches to the organisation of time 5. An attitude that embraces non-semantic methods of communication 6. Wiggly vibrations of air 7. A meeting place 8. Anything that labels itself as music 9. A collection of histories that are constantly self-reflexively generating new expressive potentials.«

Matthew Grousse is a composer, performer and organiser, originally from Yorkshire (UK), currently living and working in Copenhagen (DK). He often works in interdisciplinary settings between music for instruments and voices; electronic sound; text; video; and performance. His music regularly engages with a re-contextualisation of everyday sounds, objects, and automatic social behaviours to reveal the latently musical in the banal. Recent focusses include: audience participation; music-theatre; collaborative creation; and documentary approaches to composition.

He is a co-director of composer-performer group Current Resonance, regularly contributing to meticulously curated intermedial events. Working voluntarily to strengthen opportunities for young composers/sound artists, He has been the chairperson of Aarhus Unge Tonekunstnere and the treasurer of Ung Nordisk Musik (DK) since 2023. He debuted as a composer from Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium in February 2024 with the evening-length music-theatre work Call to this number are being diverted.