In brieflive

Serious Creeps

Simon Toldam: »Insecta«

Sune Anderberg. © Alexander Banck-Petersen

Some dream of discovering life in distant solar systems. Others – like Knud Viktor, Jacob Kirkegaard and now also Simon Toldam – turn the telescope around and uncover unknown life in the immediate yet hidden nature surrounding us. So what did Toldam, the 46-year-old pianist from the experimental jazz milieu, find last night when he turned his gaze toward English photographer Levon Biss’s ultra-close images of beetles, flies and grasshoppers in the world premiere of the hour-long audiovisual trio work Insecta?

First and foremost, he found a varied and inquisitive interpretation of insect life. Behind a transparent screen, Toldam transformed his prepared grand piano into a kind of gamelan instrument, while on either side of him sounds crept and hissed from saxophonist Torben Snekkestad and percussionist Peter Bruun. The production values were high, and the trio – collectively known as Loupe – moved deftly between the concrete and the spherical.

At times, however, there was something old-fashioned about the expression. As a yellow-brown grasshopper gradually took shape on the screen, nanometre by nanometre, the piano’s metallic cymbal-sounds placed it within an Eastern sonic realm. It resonated with exoticism, with old electronic EMS recordings steeped in atonal serialism, and soon Snekkestad let a plaintive Miles Davis-like trumpet drift through the soundscape.

Yet when, with dramatic flair, he blew air through the same instrument or attached a rubber hose and transformed it into a frothing bass monster – while Bruun stroked metal surfaces or pounded the drums in ritualistic patterns – we were out of the past again. And when Insecta finally leaned into the ambient, and Toldam began bending the gamelan tones with his hands inside the open piano, it was as if not only time but also the distance between oneself and the insects dissolved into a trembling dream image. At that point, it suddenly no longer mattered whether there is life on Mars.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

In brief

14.01

From Pain to Paralysis: a Stabat Mater Without Wounds

ELECTRIO: »Stabat Mater«

Fresh Ribes, 26.09

Jeppe Rönnow

The theme has been revisited countless times in music history, but ELECTRIO (Francesco Rista, Simone Giordano and Sandra Lind Þorsteinsdóttir) attempt to give Stabat Mater a new expression, combining guitar, vocals and electronics with Latin texts, Monteverdi fragments and songs by Dowland. The ambition is clear, yet the result is uneven.

There are, however, two striking exceptions. The opening of Stabat Mater – recorded at the Royal Danish Academy of Music – is captivating in itself: a four-minute build-up that establishes a muted, hovering sense of expectation. But it lies so close to Pink Floyd’s »Shine On You Crazy Diamond« that one can almost hear the quotation shimmering underneath. The characteristic three guitar notes fall at exactly the same place, just before Sandra Þorsteinsdóttir’s voice enters. »Fac me Cruce« is shaped with attractive energy and dynamic form, making strong use of electronics, but ends abruptly before the music has truly begun to unfold. If only ELECTRIO had continued in this direction.

The harmonic foundations of the eight pieces are often predictable, as in »Sancta Mater«, in which the Holy Mother prays that the wounds of the crucified be imprinted upon her heart. The harshness of the text is entirely absent from the underlying feel-good guitar fingerpicking, which moves shamelessly through familiar chord progressions. No wounds. No suffering.

More generally, Þorsteinsdóttir rarely strays from conventional baroque phrasing or genuinely experiments with the genre. The result resembles a mirror version of Sting’s Dowland project from 2006: only inverted – here a classically oriented singer who keeps too respectful a distance to let the songs truly enter an experimental universe.

Why did the trio not instead draw inspiration from Pergolesi’s music for the same text and theme? His score brims with wild dissonances that a new interpretation could have explored to powerful effect – revealing more anguish and outward-turning sorrow.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

In briefrelease

14.01

In the Ruins of Old Organs, Builder Finds His Own Sonic Universe

Calum Builder: »Poor_in_Spirit – the (Re)constructed Pipe Organ«

OOH-sounds, 21.11

Kristoffer Møllegaard

On his previous album, Renewal Manifestation, Calum Builder let the organ of Mariendal Church roar forth as an imposing protagonist. Now he returns with a work in which the same instrument not only carries the narrative but is the entire narrative – in the form of »the (Re)constructed Pipe Organ«, an organ he has assembled himself from discarded pipes and mechanics salvaged from Danish churches.

It’s a fascinating project, but what about the music? It’s a mixed experience. The three opening tracks, which together form the title piece, as well as »sometimes, I wonder«, are the highlights. The homemade organ surges beneath Builder’s touch on the keys, its frequencies rising and falling like hills and valleys in constant flux. The instrument howls like an autumn wind in the trees, while under- and overtones stand tall like runestones before crashing into each other. Builder’s talent for dramatic songwriting emerges in these miniature pieces – despite the instrument’s audible limitations.

Unfortunately, things unfold differently in several of the other tracks, such as »cicadas_nighttimesound« and »Pacific«. They appear more like sketches – demonstrations of the organ’s possibilities – than fully realised compositions. Ideas remain static and repeated, with very little development. The expected shifts and resolutions never arrive. On Poor_in_Spirit, Builder is clearly experimenting with form and function, and that in itself is interesting. But I miss the vitality and dramaturgy that are otherwise the core of his music.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

In briefrelease

14.01

70 Minutes Confined to a Creaking Construction Site

Gayle Young & Robert Wheeler: »From Grimsby to Milan«

Farpoint Records, 05.09

Therese Wiwe Vilmar

The Amranthen is a peculiar string instrument, invented and built by Canadian instrument maker Gayle Young. It consists of a wooden box fitted with 21 steel strings and three bass strings, and its unique, organic timbre unfolds on From Grimsby to Milan, where Young improvises alongside American musician Robert Wheeler on synthesizer. The recordings from Grant Avenue Studios capture the encounter between the acoustic and the electronic in a loosely shaped, raw musical flow.

Across nearly 70 minutes divided into six parts, the listener is kept in a state of constant uncertainty. The sonic landscape resembles a noisy, dystopian construction site: on »Seaweed Slowly Shifting«, bows are drawn with a saw-like rasp, fingers scratch, machines whirr, and sharp electronic zaps flash like warning lights. Later, bells and pulse-like rhythms enter on »Mariana Trench«, while »Consonant Harmony« slows the pace, settling into a subdued, crackling atmosphere where sparse melodic gestures suggest a momentary lull in the turmoil.

The construction-site metaphor fits well, for the most compelling version of this project would likely be to experience Young’s handmade instruments live, in direct dialogue with Wheeler’s electronics. As an audio recording, however, the project remains closed-off and somewhat insular. And although From Grimsby to Milan contains a wealth of fine detail, the journey – from Grimsby in Canada to Milan in Ohio – ultimately feels long and monotonous, without ever offering the listener the key to unlock its dystopian worksite.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

Playlist

02.01

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

»Music is all of life in sound.«

Thomas Morgan is a double bass player based in New York. He has recorded and toured all over the world as a member of Paul Motian’s bands, the John Abercrombie Quartet, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Tomasz Stanko New York Quartet, Bill Frisell Trio, Jakob Bro Trio w. Joey Baron among many others. He has also collaborated with Dan Tepfer, Craig Taborn and Masabumi Kikuchi, and released albums with Bill Frisell, Small Town; Maria Laurette Friis, Colors, and with Jakob Bro/Joe Lovano, Once Around The Room. In November 2025 he stepped forward with his first solo project, Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music). The record is built around WOODS, a virtual string instrument Morgan designed in SuperCollider that evokes the sound of plucked and struck string instruments – West African lute-harps, Asian zithers, the Hungarian cimbalom, marimbas – while operating according to generative code that Morgan shaped into a living, evolving instrument.

Playlist

20.12

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

»Making a playlist is not an easy task for me. Music occupies most of my waking hours. It is a condition that began to grow when I was a teenager. If I am not playing myself, or working with the music I release or compose, music is still present, reaching out to me. I have always found it difficult to experience music in boxes or genres, so I listen very broadly and take pleasure in any music I can feel and that moves me. Music is a condition of life, and expressing oneself through music is a gift – but being able to experience music with openness is perhaps an even greater gift. I have chosen a list in which the guitar plays a part.«

Lars Hannibal began – like many others of his generation – playing folk and rock guitar at the age of fifteen. But when he heard the Spanish guitar master Andrés Segovia perform the gavotte from Bach’s Partita in E major, his musical life took a new direction, and he decided to devote himself to the classical guitar.

Since the early 1970s, Lars Hannibal has also composed songs and instrumental works. Today he performs primarily as a member of the Petri/Hannibal Duo and works alongside this as managing director of the record label OUR Recordings, which he founded together with Michala Petri in 2006, as well as a consultant for Edition Borup-Jørgensen.