in brieflive
24.02.2025

Dido and Doom

Vinterjazz: Alice: Slim0
© Slim0

Doom was in the air when Slim0 took the stage on Saturday night at a sold-out Alice. In October, the band released the 17-track album FORGIVENESS—an album that takes a slow step into the riff-laden terrain of stoner rock. For this evening’s occasion, the Slim0 trio had been expanded with a lineup featuring Agnete Hannibal on cello, Aase Nielsen on saxophone, and Johan Polder on bass.

The sound exists somewhere between the English singer Dido, the drone-metal band Earth, and the drill trio Shooter Gang from Trillegården – an abstract comparison that hardly does justice to the uniqueness of the songs, as Slim0’s long referential tentacles stretch far beyond the music’s sharp contrasts. With its sacral-sounding choir and heavy drum passages, the single »Trenches« fit perfectly into the live setting. The darkness and the shifts between the three vocalists – from shared harmonies to growl – intensified the theatrical metal expression.

In a similar way, a nostalgic sigh arose when Dido’s catchy vocal lines from the hit »Thank You« emerged in the double cover »I Have But One Heart.« The perhaps lesser-known instrumental part, consisting of Earth’s »Coda Maestro in F Flat Minor«, turned the piece into a prime example of Slim0’s referential swamp brew. Although the many contrasts made for a rather epic concert, they also left me feeling somewhat conflicted. Conflicted because I genuinely enjoy Slim0’s heavy and fragmented universe, yet the lack of voluminous weight left me craving a more bone-rattling sound that could carve the sharp contrasts even more deeply. Hunger for more doom is certainly not a bad feeling, and I look forward to hearing the epic expression grow louder and even heavier.

© PR

»To us, music is a primal, elemental force that allows us to shed our inhibitions.«

Leizure is a Copenhagen-based quintet operating at the intersection of post-punk, no wave, and experimental rock. The band’s sound is characterized by atonal vocals, piercing saxophone, hypnotic guitar riffs, and a rhythmic foundation that oscillates between tight precision and raw intensity. 

The band’s upcoming album, The Guillotine, explores themes such as societal decay, upheaval, and the challenging of established structures – all conveyed through a direct and high-energy musical style.

© Robin Skjoldborg
© Robin Skjoldborg

Danish musician, author, and artist Martin Hall has died at the age of 63. According to his family, he passed away from a heart attack at his home in Frederiksberg on Tuesday, 21 July.

Since the early 1980s, Hall left an indelible mark on Danish music and cultural life – first with Ballet Mécanique and Under For, and later through an extensive solo career that moved effortlessly between experimental music, electronic pop, poetry, performance, and literature. He leaves behind one of the most substantial discographies and bibliographies in Danish cultural history.

© Kåre Viemose
© Kåre Viemose

Seismograf is heading off on summer break to check out the ocean's deep vibrations.  🌊🤿  See you in August. Have a great summer!

in brieflive
15.07

Noise in the White Cube

Aros: »Unruly – the Body in Punk«
© Karen Knorr & Olivier Richon, Vortex 6 from the Punks series, 1976 - 1977, gelatin silver print on paper,18,7 x 28,2 cm, Tate. Courtesy of the artists.
© Karen Knorr & Olivier Richon, Vortex 6 from the Punks series, 1976 - 1977, gelatin silver print on paper,18,7 x 28,2 cm, Tate. Courtesy of the artists.

The first thing that hits you at Aros' Unruly – the Body in Punk isn't dog collars, leather jackets or fishnet stockings. It's the sound. It rumbles through the galleries. After all, what is punk doing in a museum? Punk was never made for museums. It's dirty, loud and ephemeral. It thrives on amateurism, mistakes and resistance. One might fear that the white cube would turn three-chord fury into cultural history and noise into background music. Curator Marie Arleth Skov has created an exhibition in which sound doesn't merely illustrate history – it propels it. Raw guitars, piercing saxophones, flickering Super 8 films and concert footage merge into a rush of noise, images and bodies.

Unruly is not a comprehensive history of punk but a sharply focused snapshot of a culture in which sound and the body were inseparable. Punk's godmothers appear alongside Danish bands such as Lost Kids, Pussy Punk and Sods in previously unseen footage from a legendary punk happening in Copenhagen. A leather drum kit by Käthe Kruse of Die Tödliche Doris stands as a sculpture bearing the dry title In Leder, while Cornelia Schleime's video reveals the vulnerability and poetry that also inhabited punk rebellion. The contrast with Erik Satie's stripped-back piano music is exquisite. Walking through the exhibition feels like stepping inside a three-dimensional fanzine. Everywhere, it celebrates misfits and those who never asked for permission. Leopard-print cushions, raw materials and tactile installations make you feel as if you could almost touch punk itself.

In art museums, sound is often reduced to atmosphere. Here, it becomes a material on equal footing with fabric, video and the body. Noise is treated as an artistic method rather than a soundtrack. Fifty-year-old noise still sounds astonishingly contemporary as it resonates with the exhibition's newer works. You feel it vibrating through your body. Instead of muting the world, the museum becomes an amplifier.

Can rebellion survive inside a museum? Unruly shows that punk's energy does not necessarily disappear when it enters an institution. Only two things are missing: the chance to experience the exhibition at four o'clock in the morning – and a lavish catalogue bound in latex.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

© PR

»For us, music is the companion that stays with you through life’s highs, lows, benders, and shitty times. There isn’t a single emotion for which we don’t each have an internal soundtrack. It’s a wonderful, universal thing that music triggers moods and reinforces feelings.«

Barcode played a couple of hundred shows across Europe in the 90s and 2000s – touring with acts like Madball, Agnostic Front, and Hatebreed – and released five full-length albums. The Aarhus-based band will play its first concert in 18 years as the headliner at the Support Our Scene festival in Fredericia this August.