Blog: Going Other Places

I don't often get to write about people younger than myself. When someone noteworthy pops up, however, it becomes all the more enjoyable. Right now, that somebody happens to be Gerry Read. The 19-year old has released a bunch of EPs on Fourth Wave, yet I somehow managed to miss that until All By Myself landed in my inbox. Needless to say, this release made me curious to find out what I had been missing out on. Turns out, Read is pretty darn excellent. There is a cheeky jazz sample, a droning layer of hi-hats, and [...]

It's been a while, hasn't it? Rather than trying to catch up on every single release that I missed (I imagine that would take another while), I decided to share the releases that have spent the most time in my headphones over the past months. There is no rhyme or reason to my choices here, and the only common denominator is that all of them are absolutely beautiful pieces of music, regardless of whether they commit to techno or ambient. Andy Stott - We Stay Together (Modern Love) [...]

Solomun - See You Everyday Alone [See post to listen to audio] We need to take things less seriously. I'm serious. It's no use getting so wound up in whether Crosstown Rebels are the new Wolf + Lamb that you forget how fun everything was supposed to be. There is nothing exciting about Internet rants, press releases, or yet another artsy podcast. Sampling Amerie does not necessarily solve all our problems. It does help quite a lot, though. Solomun has released nothing but gold this year, and his most recent [...]

At Strøm, Friday marks the end of all the meta-musical events and the beginning of the festival's cornerstone concerts at Enghaveparken. For the always compelling price of nothing, Copenhagen's music enthusiasts are invited to join the fun with acts like Jatoma, Egyptrixx, Space Dimension Controller, and Pional playing sets in the evening hours. For an artist with only a few buzzed-about releases, Lone had accumulated a surprising amount of hype for his Strøm appearance. Surprising mainly because his music is vastly different from most of the other acts on the bill. But then again, there isn't a [...]

It didn't strike me until I was on my way home just how ungrateful a feat compiling the history of electronic music to a 90-minute lecture is. Where to start? What to include? What to leave out? In hindsight and from the safety of the crowd, it is always easier to be wisecracking, but just thinking about the extent of that job made me glad I was not about to embark on the same journey as Ralf Christensen. Where did he start? With the very basics, it turned out. Landmarks like the first voice recording, the first [...]

There's a bunch of us waiting at Nørreport, cans in hands, mumbling passionately with a slight sense of secrecy. On a normal Tuesday, you might think this would be because FCK are playing the Champions League qualifiers (and will subsequently get their behinds handed to them), but that is not why. As the next Metro cart approaches and a distant rumble grows increasingly audible, there is no doubt that the Nørreport crowd is here to join this year's Trans Metro Express. The few casual commuters look puzzled as a jam-packed train, filled to the brim with hundreds of ravers, picks [...]

There's a bunch of us waiting at Nørreport, cans in hands, mumbling passionately with a slight sense of secrecy. On a normal Tuesday, you might think this would be because FCK are playing the Champions League qualifiers (and will subsequently get their behinds handed to them), but that is not why. As the next Metro cart approaches and a distant rumble grows increasingly audible, there is no doubt that the Nørreport crowd is here to join this year's Trans Metro Express. The few casual commuters look puzzled as a jam-packed train, filled to the brim with hundreds of ravers, picks [...]

'They have free Red Bull!' were the first words my friend said, when we met up at Culture Box yesterday. And sure enough, there was plenty of free caffeine for everybody once inside. While a solid energy boost should never be neglected, I was more interested in RBMA's general involvement with the event. As far as I recall, we have already had a few master classes around Copenhagen hosted by the caffeine giant, but this year's Strøm festival hosts well over a handful of master classes and workshops that borrow the traditional RBMA structure while adding a handful of both [...]

The following is my guide to all the wonderful events taking place during the Strøm 2011. I'll be writing about various happenings on here as well as on the official Strøm blog , so expect a lot of crossposting (and great music!). Morten from Regnsky will cover the other half of the festival on that blog, too, so there should be plenty of exciting things happening throughout the week. I wonder how we ever get anything done. Admittedly, it's summertime and things are pretty quiet at the moment, but look at all those [...]

The following is my guide to all the wonderful events taking place during the Strøm 2011. I'll be writing about various happenings on here as well as on the official Strøm blog , so expect a lot of crossposting (and great music!). Morten from Regnsky will cover the other half of the festival on that blog, too, so there should be plenty of exciting things happening throughout the week. I wonder how we ever get anything done. Admittedly, it's summertime and things are pretty quiet at the moment, but look at all those [...]

Klaus - Tusk [See post to listen to audio] You can't accuse R&S for squandering the words on their latest release. Klaus is releasing Tusk , an EP containing Fens , Cypher , Pim , and, yes, Tusk . Brevity is bliss. Once past those four words, however, Tusk shows more depth. I find it increasingly difficult to immerse myself in the ambient branch of dubstep offshoots that seem more concerned with their own experiments than with anybody else's experience. At first, you [...]

Osunlade - Envision (Ame Remix) [See post to listen to audio] There is a new Dixon remix in town, but you probably already know about that. I listened to a preview of his reworked version of Osunlade 's Envision a while back and loved what I heard. Then, I picked up the remix package yesterday. And while I still thoroughly enjoy Dixon's remix, the Âme remix takes the cake for me. Yes, the Dixon remix has its strengths, there probably exists one if not more perfect [...]

Sunday night is an ungrateful time for partying. Well, Sundays are not problematic per se. But with three days of festival action already in your body, getting back in the game is challenging. I imagine that something along those lines ran through the heads of the majority of the crowd yesterday at Trailerpark; a crowd that was, admittedly, less impressive in numbers than in the past three days. Still, I had no intentions of quitting Trailerpark early this year. After years of shameless fanboyism, I finally had an opportunity to see Motor City Drum Ensemble live. [...]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that attending a concert with fewer than 50 other people in the audience is the epitome of hipster fandom. Jokes aside, the fairly hipster Trailerpark crowd did not exactly crowd the tents for the early evening shows yesterday on the second day of the festival. The schedule provided plenty of excellent opportunities for musical explorations, among those a visit from UK born, Berlin-based, and occasional Berghain affiliate Emika . With a dark sound falling somewhere between electronica, techno and dubstep, Emika seemed like the perfect fit for the Giana Factory and [...]

Things were buzzing around Vesterbro yesterday. After months of planning, teasing and preparing, the Artrebels crew was finally ready to open the gates and kick off Trailerpark Festival 2011. Attending Trailerpark is not just like attending any other festival. Sure, festivals across the globe do what they can to combine music, art, and installations to create a richer experience, but in most cases the integration seems like an afterthought rather than a defining asset. That is not the case with Trailerpark. Upon entering the site at and around Copenhagen Skatepark, visitors were greeted with numerous minutely decorated [...]

It's that time again. This weekend, Copenhagen will once again be hosting one of the finer music festivals around when the art and music extravaganza that is Trailerpark Festival takes over Vesterbro. Last year, the lineup was solid but seemed to lack that extra oomph that made you rush out to get that ticket. This year, however, Trailerpark has, at least in my opinion, the best lineup of all the Danish summer festivals. Along with the finest Danish acts, some of the best artists in electronic music will playing sets during the four days. To help you navigate the lineup, [...]

"So, this is my first post ever, and I wanted to start with something special." Exactly three years ago I embarked on my first blog post ever with those words. I don't know where all that time went or how those more than 600 posts came into being. It's been a fun ride, though. I don't want to come up with any big words, but I do want to take the opportunity to thank you for reading this. Whether it's your first, your 100th or, hell, your last visit to Going Other Places, I want to [...]

Motor City Drum Ensemble - L.O.V.E. [See post to listen to audio] For a while, things have been quiet in Stuttgart. 2010 saw Danilo Plessow reworking already proven jams, most notably for Caribou and NUfrequency, but original material never surfaced. Now, however, we no longer have to wait for warm and sample-heavy deep house, since Plessow is supporting the recent release of his DJ-Kicks mix with a brand new single. You have probably already heard the rumble of excitement around the blogosphere. If this buzz didn't already get you excited for L.O.V.E. , please [...]

So, how was it? With all the disclaimers from my guide in mind, you might already have guessed that Roskilde didn't exactly blow me away in terms of music. Their decision to (practically) ban all major electronic music camps in the camping area - camps, mind you, who cared enough about Roskilde to invest thousands of dollars professional sound and lighting - didn't help either. Although the latter was a major blow to the warm-up festivities, it is still the former that keeps tens of thousands of people coming back year after year. With a lineup that seemed to receive [...]

My blogging hiatus has been longer than what I initially planned. I wish I could say that I was out exploring the festival circuit. Sipping drinks at Primavera, bouncing around at Sonar, enjoying the sun at Coachella. Sadly, I didn't do any of those. But then again, finishing my exams and moving most of my stuff back to Denmark for the summer probably counts as a legitimate excuse. Excuses aside, I'm ready to embark on a few months of festival fun. While I missed this year's Distortion extravaganza (which was, apparently, extravagant in every sense of the word), [...]