Essay by Macon Holt In 2009, the producer, label owner (Hyperdub), philosopher and reluctant academic, Steve Goodman (Kode 9), released a book that would transform the philosophy of sound and, in turn, open up whole new avenues for sonic investigation through both theory and practice. The book was “Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear” from MIT Press. Structured as a sonic focused ...

By Wieland Rambke – photo: Thomas Sørensen From a landscape in bright, vibrant colours, animal shapes emerge, almost unrecognizable, caught in motion in twisted stances, their colours just as lively as those of the lands that have given birth to them. Between 1944 and 1946, Danish artist Asger Jorn painted “Animaux Animé” – meaning both “animated animals” and “lively animals”. The painting is set in raw ...

Brad Mehldau “Finding Gabriel” By Macon Holt This video/track/essay/statement recently released by the critically acclaimed jazz master Brad Mehldau is infuriating. Not least because the instrumental musical elements of “The Prophet is a Fool” do seem to accurately enunciate something of the violence, anxiety, and pseudo-stability of the contemporary moment in a way that the discursive and representational components fail to even as ...

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 ...

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’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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...