It has become common to describe a strain of ambient music as »cinematic«, thereby – perhaps unintentionally – dismissing it as mood-setting functional music rather than an art form in its own right. Yet the exploration of static sound fields and atmospheric drone structures long predates their use as a cinematic device. Within this tradition, stretching from Morton Feldman to Éliane Radigue and Phill Niblock, the Italian composer Guido Zen has, for the past fifteen years or so, inscribed himself under the pseudonym Abul Mogard. In the late 1990s he moved through London’s electronic underground with the duo Gamers In Exile and has since collaborated with, among others, the Danish composer Goodiepal.
At the concert at Alice, Mogard’s broad synth textures emerged like banks of fog. Behind a table densely packed with drum machines, mixers and patch cables – tendrils of wires curling between the machines – the black-clad Mogard stood illuminated by small clip lamps attached to the edges of his equipment. The tones were elongated, almost motionless. Time was not measured in bars but in intensity: bass resonating in the chest; a subtle adjustment of atmospheric pressure. Undramatic, yet unstoppable. The textures shifted so gradually that one often registered the changes only after they had passed. Harmonic modulations rarely felt like traditional chord changes, but rather like shadows moving across a surface.
Synth layers slid into one another with near-geological slowness, settling like accumulated sediment – gentle and colossal at once. Mogard lingered on the single tone long enough for it to begin revealing its inner life: tiny trembling vibrations, almost microscopic irregularities in the crust of sound. The sound pulsed from within, crossed by undulating patterns of interference.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
Danish composer Sofus Forsberg has died at the age of 56. With his distinctive blend of melodic sensibility, electronic processing and rhythmic precision, he created a musical world that moved effortlessly between IDM, pop and the avant-garde.
»Music for me is my hobby, my job, my outlet, my mood, an endless source of discovering new music and new, old music, some of the best and can be some of the worst. And I love it!«
Track72 aka Tue Track aka Anders Lundby Brixen. Producer, DJ, rapper and more. Known for his role in the trio Malk De Koijn, which since the mid-1990s has created a personal universe in Danish hip-hop. Has performed in Ponyblod, Xtra Naan, Track Abdullah Rock, Booty Cologne and others.
On Wednesday, 5 August 2026, it happened again: a chord in John Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) changed after two and a half years. Classic FM reports.
The work was written by the American avant-garde composer John Cage in the mid-1980s. The score consists of eight pages of music, and, as the title suggests, the instruction is to play it »as slow as possible.«
»What music is to me? Where have the great feelings gone?«.
Gellért Szabó is a composer, conductor and performer based in Leipzig, Germany. His work combines contemporary composition with influences from free improvisation, noise and the expressive richness of the late nineteenth century. He is the founder and artistic director of the 23-piece Ideal Orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to large-scale experimental music of sweeping emotional intensity. Alongside this work, Szabó performs internationally with his solo project Radical Radio Show, exploring symphonic textures and immersive sound worlds through a single electric guitar and live electronics. His music is driven by a search for intensity, vulnerability and uncompromising emotional expression.
From the Culture Yard in Helsingør, ships glide past Kronborg Castle through the narrow waters of the Øresund – a reminder of the trade routes that, for centuries, have carried goods, people and power between the Nordic region and the wider world. It is an apt point of departure for the Passage Festival, and for Marie Dahl's vocal work Silk. Sugar. Sand, which explores the intertwined histories of three materials.
Silk. Sugar. Sand is a vocal performance in three acts tracing the historical journeys of these materials through colonialism, the global economy and geopolitics. Five singers from Ars Nova Copenhagen perform within a minimalist scenography consisting almost entirely of coloured light and three sets of costumes that transform throughout the performance: first silk dresses, then crinoline-like structures evoking sugar loaves, and finally grey stone-like forms suggesting accumulations of sand.
The work's central device is to translate the physical properties of these materials into vocal expression. At one moment, the elasticity of silk becomes soft, flowing polyphony; at the next, a cocoon-like electronic crackle. Sugar's crystalline structure is rendered as sharp vocal attacks – brief, whip-like cracks – as well as sweet, intimate whispers, while sand creaks and rustles, resonating with a libretto about economy and domination, violence and desire.
The performance has no conventional narrative, and the five singers portray no distinct characters, moving somewhat stiffly across the stage, as performers often do when their primary focus is on the voice. Comparisons with Hotel Pro Forma's Flammenwerfer are difficult to avoid. There, the production's rigorous aesthetic was counterbalanced by C.F. Hill's wildly expressive visual universe and Blixa Bargeld's deeply vulnerable stage presence. Those qualities are missing from Marie Dahl's carefully controlled staging, which could have benefited from more of the sensitivity and chaos that also form part of Kirsten Dehlholm's artistic legacy.
