in brief

20.10.2023

Heavenly tape loops from the superstar of ambient music

Alice: William Basinski

Jakob Gustav Winckler. © Jakob Gustav Winckler

The only thing that might be missing was a yippie ki-yay from William Basinski when he took on the Copenhagen Distillery as part of The Last Symphony tour. »Buckle up bitches«, it sounded so raw that for a moment you thought it was Bruce Willis on stage. Basinski's riveting superstar charisma is the perfect contrast to his crumbling and self-indulgent ambient music.

The concert was refreshingly far from the extended space of contemplation I associate with Basinski's recorded works. His famous series The Disintegration Loops (2002-2003), in which the mortal world of tape loops crumbles in slow motion, was emblematic of the concerns many had around the turn of the millennium: Was the infinity of the brave new digital world actually the beginning of the end? Like no one else, Basinski manages to let the question of technological determinism sound open in his music: The patinated tape recordings contain no answer, but instead a curious state, where repetition and impermanence stop pulling at the sense of time from either side and instead come full circle.

It was fascinating to experience the way Basinski processed his loops. Every time he put a new sound into rotation, it seemed as if it was his first encounter with it. Quickly, a sucking field of reverberation and feedback arose, forming a sphere from the orbits of the tape loops. The analog sound sometimes gnawed at the music with its small clips and grinding compression.

The distance between the ambient terrains was short and the concert, which was followed by two encores, was more collage-like than the wasteland Basinski usually paints. The landscape was particularly captivating as a six-note motif consumed itself in reverberation and gave way to what sounded like Arabic ornamented chant. Basinski found transcendence in the high frequencies, and when at one point he extended a bright vocal sound beyond the murky tape environment, the boundary between heaven and earth disappeared. It was incomprehensibly beautiful to hear how the vocals hovered like a radiant deity over the profane tape-recorded world.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

14.05

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

»Music to me is movement, trance, transformation. The rest I won't tell you.«

Marcela Lucatelli is a vocalist and composer. Born in Brazil and based in Denmark, she has gained international recognition for her boundary-pushing performances — sensuous, politically charged, and uncompromisingly original. Described by The Wire as a composer of »scores for the limits of bodies and voice,« Lucatelli challenges conventions with her fearless vocal experimentation and bold compositions. Her works have been performed by Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. She has appeared at major festivals and venues, including Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, DR Koncerthuset, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, IRCAM, Copenhagen Opera Festival, Ultima Festival, Borealis Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Jazzfestival Saalfelden, Cafe Oto, A L’ARME!, DMA Jazz – Danish Music Awards, WOMEX, and many more. Lucatelli's work has earned her several prestigious awards, including the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Talent Prize (2019), Pelle Prize (2021), and the Danish Music Awards' 2023 Vocal Jazz Release of the Year, which shows that vocal jazz has many faces – and does not necessarily belong only to the soft end of the spectrum.

playlist

14.05

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

»What is music to me? Here’s a quote from Nietzsche: ‘The people dancing all seemed crazy to the people who couldn’t hear the music.’«

Salim Washington is a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, academic, and activist from Detroit who has been highly active on the American jazz scene since the 1970s, and also in South Africa, where he became a central figure. The spirit of John Coltrane hovers over his music, which carries both spiritual and social dimensions.

playlist

11.05

We are DØGNKIOSK – would you like to see our playlist?

»Music for us is the perfect language that we love to speak. A language where it is the individual's feelings and imagination that determine what is right and wrong. Everyone can speak the language. You don't have to be able to write or understand, but just listen. Some music requires that you listen carefully and maybe hear it several times. A bit like when you talk to someone from Norway or Sweden, you also have to listen a little extra.«

DØGNKIOSK is a Danish punk rock band with roots in Silkeborg. The band consists of bassist and singer Anders Ejner, who has been active on the Danish underground scene for several decades. Musically, DØGNKIOSK moves in a field between classic Danish punk and alternative rock. In the spring of 2026, the band will release their second album, Tæt på kanten.

news

05.05

A Critic on the Move – In Memory of Andreas Engström

It is difficult to comprehend that Andreas Engström is no longer with us. Just a couple of months ago, he wrote – as he had done so many times before – with an ambitious proposal: he wanted to review a box set of twenty releases by Dror Feiler. In the same message, he mentioned plans to come to Aarhus for the recently concluded Spor Festival.

in briefrelease

04.05

The Escape From a Hotel That May Not Exist

RÖM: »Whispering Dub«

Traverse, 30.04

Simon Heggum

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re deep underground – indeed, all the way to France. This EP is the latest conceptual release from French electronic producer Romain Martin, who works under the name RÖM in the borderland between ambient and techno. Whispering Dub unfolds across five tracks, drawing heavily on dub while telling a story about an escape from a fictional hotel. Escomel’s background in African percussion studies and his fondness for analog gear surface in the mysterious sonic textures and the stark contrast between arranged percussion and dubbed-out echoes, underscoring the concept’s tension between mysticism and reality.

»Oilbird« opens in dystopian ambient before sliding into the rhythmic »Eastern Temple«, which constantly shifts between filtered synths, frantic percussion, and sudden breakbeats. Things cohere more fully on the title track, which blends minimal techno into the mix and stands out by maintaining a steady pulse, while echo-laden drums cast an unsettling atmosphere within the dance framework. On the closing »Hotel Amnesia«, the narrator awakens again in a collage of the record’s electronic tendencies, questioning their own existence in the album’s only use of vocals.

Whispering Dub isn’t wildly groundbreaking or bizarre enough to push the senses into extreme reactions. But as a well-produced and effective piece of electronic music, it invites the listener into a compelling game of whispers.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek