Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (b. 1979) considers his work to be a basic research in realities working within the domains of imaginary & physical sound as well as other non-sonic media. Since 2012 Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard has experimented with creating music that lets the instruments transcend their inherent sonic norms and reappear in another form by way of multiplication of sound.
His work with multiplication of sound has led to numerous compositions in which one instrument is multiplied a number of times. His work includes a composition for 9 pianos, another for 10 hi-hats and yet another for countless triangles and so on....
The multiplication brings out bodily timbral phenomena, interference of sound waves and vibrations, evoking what Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard calls the sound’s "potential of transformation." He describes this as the quality in a musical piece when you no longer hear recognizable instruments and the individual sound, as well as the individual musician, is dissolved into the whole.
A sonic as well as human synthesis.
He explains the concept of this sound as follows:
“Imagine you enter a room with vibrant acoustics, such as a cafe full of people having conversations, and when you’re close to those conversations you hear the language and understand the words. If you step away from the tables, however, and stand in the doorway, you begin to lose the ability to distinguish the words from one another. Now instead of hearing the individual conversations, multiplication melts all the conversations and transforms them into one new sound. A sound of people without words and language. Just as when you hear a group of geese squawk, or the wind in treetops, a kind of nature-given sound of people. Once the language is dissolved and the words stop making sense, what is left, is the sound."
The work of NLL has been presented at a variety of different venues and museums such as MoMA (NY - as a part of the René Magritte exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary, 2013), Imaginary West
Indies (Overgaden Copenhagen, 2017), ISCM (Vancouver, 2017), Radiophrenia (Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, 2017), CPH:DOX (Copenhagen, 2017), Roskilde Festival (2017), Harpa (Reykjavik, 2017), G((o))ng Tomorrow Festival (Copenhagen 2016, 2018), Nordic Music Days (Norway, 2019), Akusmata (SF, 2020) and his works has been released on labels such as Topos (DK), Archive Officielle (CA) and Important Records (US). NLL is associate professor at RMC in Copenhagen, and has given lectures at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Goldsmiths University of London a.o.p. NLL has been awarded with several prizes a.o. from the Danish Art Foundation and the Sonning Foundation.
credits
released July 14, 2021
Albert Raft
Jesper Løvdal
Franscesco Bigoni
Pernille Bévort
Kasper Wagner
Anders Havshøj
Bo Skjold Christensen
Kristoffer Nybye
Vincent Pongracz
Morten Lohmann Sønderskov Jensen
Birgit Bøgh Sønderriis
Jeppe Højgaard
Tine Vitkov
Jeppe Skjold
Torben Snekkestad
Magnus Thuelund
Jeppe Zacho
Karen Duelund Guastavino
Anders Banke
Recorded on November 8th 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Composed and conducted by Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard
Cover: Nullary Sum (2019) by Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard
All rights reserved
The character conveyed most often in Important releases isn't style but substance, with a personal and emotional depth that makes the label easy to understand but difficult to explain.
Absolutely love this recording. I listen to it at work. I listen to it in the car on the way home from work. I listen to it while falling asleep. Curtis’ cello is so amazing. Just got the vinyl in the mail from Discogs the other day! Can’t wait to play on my hi-fi system! Dave Sewall
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