Fear and Heavy Curtains in Aarhus

Aarhus Festuge: Hotel Pro Forma: »Flammenwerfer«

Blixa Bargeld. © Emma Larsson

Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek. © Kåre Viemose

»All sounds are loud,« we hear in Flammenwerfer – Hotel Pro Forma’s account of the Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill (1849–1911). Everything in this universe is transparent and layered. The orange hue in Hill’s art, flickering across the stage, crackles with both a beautifully golden noise and a psychedelic quality reminiscent of 1970s ceramics. In a central scene, Blixa Bargeld half-screams into a microphone and receives looped screams hurled back into his head. The patchwork of sound also includes five vocalists from IKI and selected pieces – the only music here that comes close to pop – by Nils Frahm.

The dark circles under the eyes are constantly pronounced. As are the letters that signal a new chapter, the next dive into the mind – for instance the section titled »Paranoia«. Here, IKI expands Einstürzende Neubauten’s »Halber Mensch« into five voices, allowing the hallucinations and anxiety to grow to full human scale. Yes, the sound was loud and numbing in itself. But it is largely thanks to IKI that we feel the extremes, the brain disease, and Hill’s experience of a »misarranged world«. They sang: »Heavy curtains drawn over the mind. A thick deadening cloud that blocks the use of senses.« And that is how it sounded. Cold. Like the saddest Instagram filter imaginable – with sound.

Unfortunately, Blixa Bargeld is used too sparingly in Flammenwerfer, which is not exactly a masterpiece from Hotel Pro Forma. Still, the gala audience sat very still in very soft seats and saw both a giraffe and a former queen on the same evening. The rest of Aarhus Festuge can only be more cheerful.

playlist

06.10

We are Late Runner – would you like to see our playlist?

»For us, music is... magic? Aside from the fact that we are huge fans of silence, the closing line of one of our upcoming singles perfectly captures our relationship with music:

'Music feels like magic to me / A superior art form in a marketplace / Trying to find an empty space'.

That is what it can feel like as a songwriter and performing musician. We try to hold onto an almost childlike infatuation with music, yet the art form we work in – alternative-leaning pop-rock – was created and has evolved 'in a marketplace' driven by powerful economic forces. As a romantic, that can sometimes be a bit disheartening...«

Late Runner consists of Asger Tarpgaard and Tanja Forsberg Simonsen, both formerly of the bands Superheroes and Private.

news

04.10

Björk takes over Polish marketplace today for secret festival finale

It was officially confirmed only recently that Icelandic avant-garde star Björk is visiting Bielsko-Biała today. After keeping it under wraps until the last moment, the organizers of the Wędrujący Festiwal (Wandering Festival) have revealed that Björk is the artist closing out the festival's grand finale.

playlist

03.10

My name is Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek – would you like to see my playlist?

»Recently, I discovered that when a couple of thousand people clap their thick gloves in minus 30 degrees, it sounds like the softest techno – a freezing space where the cold air turns into a wave of warmth, and we, in a moment of collective devotion, become one with the rhythm, one with the invisible bond that connects us in the warmth of silence. Music is not just sounds, but a vain attempt to capture the infinite, which has always been and always will be.«

Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek has been the editor-in-chief of Seismograf since 2021. He is also a music critic and cultural journalist at Kristeligt Dagblad and Århus Stiftstidende/Avisen Danmark and has over the years written to publications such as Kunsten.nu, Glissando (Poland), Neural (Italy), Raw Vision (UK), Nutida Musik (Sweden), Kunstkritikk (DK/Sweden), Iscene.dk, B.T., and Jazz Special. He is the author (together with Lars Muhl) of the book HVA' SAA! En guidet rutsjebanetur gennem Aarhus – før, nu og i fremtiden (2024) and has also contributed to the anthology on music criticism Man skal høre meget (ed. Thomas Michelsen and Claus Røllum-Larsen, 2024). He is a founder and partner in the Polish-Danish cultural organization Kultur(a), and wherever there is a piano, he will be there, eager to coax a melody from it.

playlist

02.10

My name is Aria Leth Schütze – would you like to see my playlist?

»For me, music is an opportunity for transformation.«

Aria Leth Schütze is based in Copenhagen and is the creative force behind the music projects Alto Aria and Samler På Dig. They are a co-founder of the record label Rhizome and a co-editor of the music magazine Passive/Aggressive. Their practice brings together electronic and acoustic music in an exploration of transformation.

playlist

02.10

My name is Mikkel Krause Frantzen – would you like to see my playlist?

»For me, music is the art form that – if measured in hours and minutes – occupies by far the greatest part of my life. I cannot sing, nor can I play an instrument, but I can listen – as a happy amateur – while cycling, on the dance floor, and, above all, at the office. I almost always work – that is, write – to music.«

Mikkel Krause Frantzen (b. 1983) is an associate professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, a literary critic for Politiken, and the author of several books in English and Danish, such as En fremtid uden Fremtid (2018), Klodens Fald (2021), and Slutspil (2024).