what we immerse ourselves in

It Sounded Wild – But Did it Last?

© Berliner Festspiele – Camille Blake

MaerzMusik in Berlin opened with 50 pianos – and bold experiments that didn't always land.

By Mathias Monrad Møller & Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

review29.03

CTM Festival in Berlin: Is the Electronic GPS Still On?

For a long time, CTM has served as a beacon for contemporary electronic music. But in an increasingly fragmented scene, the question arises: does the festival still show the way?

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
review25.03

The Comfort of Art

At Borealis in Bergen, community is everywhere. But when everything is filtered through safety and intimacy, the music risks losing its necessity – and its bite.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
review18.03

We’ve Never Needed Pulsar Festival More

The major Danish composer festivals are starting to resemble each other more and more, but Pulsar Festival stands apart. Here, there is still more string quartet than performance art, making Pulsar an important alternative platform for new music – if only the festival itself would fully realize it.

By Sune Anderberg

What Happens When the Mainstream Falls Short?

Marina Abramović: »Seven Deaths«. © David Stjernholm

Marina Abramović lets herself be murdered, burned, and thrown to her death in »Seven Deaths« at the Cisterns – but the operatic canon voiced by Maria Callas tempers the radicality that has otherwise carried her art through an entire lifetime.

By Henrik Marstal

review10.03

When the World Trembles, Kirkenes Listens

At the Barents Spektakel art festival, war, borders and vibrations are transformed into sound, conversation and art at Europe’s northernmost edge.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
essay10.03

Conversations with the Ghosts of the Past

Dungeon synth is less a longing for a lost golden age than a conversation with memory itself, carried by noise, decay, and the echoes of forgotten worlds.

By Albert Grøn Klausen
news25.02

From Ice Opera to International Leadership

Louise Beck to head the next chapter of Copenhagen Opera Festival.

By red.

A Country Built of Sound

© Sunna Ben

Dark Music Days in Reykjavík offered everything from Bára Gísladóttir’s orchestral darkness to noise, seaweed and quiet song in Harpa – in a music scene where community matters as much as the export adventure.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

essay11.02

What Does it Mean to Hear a Voice Without a Human Being?

In Niels Rønsholdt's »Country«, Jakob Kullberg meets his own manipulated double. Essay on authenticity and the voice between body and technology.

By Clara Bjerregaard Graversen
review04.02

Knausgård’s Apocalypse as Opera

Sebastian Fagerlund’s »Morgonstjärnan« transforms the novel’s existential unease into a powerful, collective musical drama.

By Andrew Mellor
review26.01

Sacred, Profane, and Unsettlingly Alive

Sacrum Profanum in Kraków offered intense sonic experiences and musical battles – but also performances where the idea outweighed the music.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek