Passive/Aggressive

Peter Jørgensen – Waking us up from reality, weaving us into a dream

Kritik June 21 2019

Peter Jørgensen ”Alt i stykker” (No Technique, 2019) – review by Giuseppe Pisano Along the years Peter Jørgensen has developed a compositional style that shares common elements with both the new wave of Scandinavian electronic ambient music and the modern-classical long form experimentations of either minimal-music composers such as Morton Feldman and more recent figures in the contemporary music panorama such as Anthony Pateras. In this sense ...

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Suzanne Ciani – Navigating the evolutionary path (interview)

June 16 2019

Interview by Astrid Hald

Iconic composer and sound designer extraordinaire Suzanne Ciani made her way by Malmö last month to give a live quadraphonic performance at the culture house Inkonst, dedicated to experimental art and music. While being classically trained American Ciani entered the forefront of the world of electronics in the ‘60s when encountering synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla and thus the Buchla analogue modular synthesizer – the instrument which has become inseparable from her name ever since. After debuting with the experimental “Voices of Packaged Souls” in 1970, she has produced an endless string of masterpieces, all of which have contributed to the expansion and humanisation of the experience of electronic sound – and earned her 5 Grammy-nominations over time – through albums, films scores and commercials, such as one of her iconic ‘voice-over’ to the computerised washing machine.

After a 40 year break from performing live with the Buchla, she returned in 2016 and has been touring on and off since then. But no performance is a given, she tells Passive/Aggressive in Malmö. “The day it breaks is the day I stop. It’s not an automatic thing like, “oh, you’re gonna do another Buchla concert?” It’s like am I gonna do another?”

Ahead of her performance, we sat down with her for a conversation about being a female pioneer that has paved the way for a new generation of analogue aficionados.

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Ursula Nistrup – The sound of sand and wind sculpting speculative alternatives to Planet Earth

Kritik June 12 2019

Ursula Nistrup’s installation “From the Pink Sand” at the art museum of Holstebro – photo by David Stjernholm Ursula Nistrup ”Cosmic Desert” (Resonans Recordings, 2019) – review by Wieland Rambke In just a few weeks, on July 20, we will see the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. With mankind setting foot in outer space, we ourselves have become aliens: An extra-terrestrial species roaming the universe, ...

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Click Festival 2019 – Strategies of resistance (a live report)

June 5 2019

Prison ReligionPhoto by Stine Sophie Winckel Click Festival 2019, 18-19th of May @ Kulturværftet, Helsingør – reportage by Ivna Franic. Taking place one weekend in May, Helsingør’s Click Festival presents a tight selection of music and art performances, talks, installations and screenings spread over two days. Now in its ninth year, the latest edition of Click saw the music program cutting down on headliners more than ever ...

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Holly Herndon – More-than-human, non-human, inhuman

Kritik May 24 2019

Holly Herndon “PROTO” (4AD, 2019) – review by Mikkel Rørbo When it comes to Holly Herndon’s third album, “PROTO”, all anyone wants to talk about, it seems, is artificial intelligence. It’s everywhere at the moment; in my own work as well, which is why I thought I’d find it ever so compelling. But really, to just focus on this one conceptual aspect ...

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Eartheater – Live in Copenhagen

May 20 2019

Live report by Cameron Pagett Most of the crowd have finished their food in the lounge outside of Alice CPH on a mild and breezy spring afternoon. I nibble at a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie just after introductions to Alexandra Drewchin (Eartheater) and her harp expert travel mate, Marilu. It’s been only a couple minutes and we are already discussing the possibility of having my assistant, who also happens to be an opera singer, join her randomly for ...

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Intonal Festival 2019 – Snapshots from the peripheries

May 8 2019

Intonal Festival, Malmö, April 24-28 – live report by Astrid Hald & Laura Juncker Malmö’s annual Intonal Festival for experimental and electronic music celebrated its 5th edition by presenting a packed programme of acclaimed experimental artists and immersive sound experiences. For five days Inkonst – the city’s independent venue for experimental music and performance – was transformed into a lively red-and-black hub, where the friendly crowd ...

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Knud Viktor – Seeing music and hearing images

Kritik April 15 2019

Exhibition “Bjerget Synger. Lydmaler Knud Viktor og hans verden”  at The Museum for Contemporary Art in Roskilde (January 18-April 28 2019) and LP “Les Éphémères” and EP “Le petit Duc” by Knud Viktor (The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology, 2019) – Review by Laura Juncker In the wake of his passing in 2013, the life’s work of the sound artist, Knud Viktor, has resurfaced in ...

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ASUNA & Jan Jelinek – Grainy micro-structures shrouded in infinite sustain

Kritik April 10 2019

ASUNA & Jan Jelinek ”Signals Bulletin” (faitiche, 2019) – review by Wieland Rambke Jan Jelinek is a legend of minimal music: For more than two decades now, the German producer has used samples, field recordings and modular synthesizers to produce gently pulsating music that feels organic, yet hi-tech. On and off through the last five years, he has been collaborating with Japanese sound artist ASUNA, and ...

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