Danske Nætter (3/4) • MYRKUR live in the Symfonisk Sal of Musikhuset Aarhus, Århus (Nov 18th 2021)

 

Myrkur

ALL FOUR PARTS OF MY DENMARK DIARY:

Danske Nætter (1/4) • SOEN and OCEAN HOARSE live in club Train, Århus (Nov 16th 2021)

Danske Nætter (2/4) • ANNA VON HAUSWOLFF live in Skt. Lukas Kirke, Århus (Nov 17th 2021)
Danske Nætter (3/4) • MYRKUR live in the Symfonisk Sal of Musikhuset Aarhus, Århus (Nov 18th 2021)
Danske Nætter (4/4) • FRA DET ONDE feat. EMIL NIKOLAISEN live at Musikhuset Dexter, Odense (Nov 19th 2021)

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When I am in an unfamiliar place and don't want to walk around with a camera, I often have a hard time finding anything else to do. What do people do in a city? I don't get the concept.

So a lot of the day was spend in the hotel room listening to music, with only a shorter tourist break including dinner.

In the evening I left relatively early to proceed waiting directly at the location, the symphonic hall of the Musikhuset Aarhus, mainly because I wanted to minimize the risk of falling asleep in my bed and coming too late to see Myrkur perform her "Folkesange" material.

I had heard of tonight's concert ages ago, when it was first announced, but didn't really pay further attention, because it was all up in Denmark. But then, a week before my trip there was a reminder that there were still some tickets available and I realized that I could very comfortably extend my stay for this extra show.  

Myrkur

Let's get the (not even really) bad out of the way first! I had a couple of minor problems, which were all kind of on myself: I must somehow have read something wrong - or maybe it was just due to the location or the word "orchestra" - but I had expected a bigger set-up. [EDIT: Well, I also mixed it up with a full orchestra performance of "Mareridt" next February, which I definitely can't visit.] With three string players, a drummer, herself on multiple instruments and now four instead of two additional singers this wasn't that much more than at Roadburn 2019, where I first saw the famously vntrve not-purely-black metal artist premiere her folk music album.
From a visual standpoint I unquestionably would have liked a seat closer to the stage, but I could have ordered the ticket earlier, right? It was a center seat, directly in front of the mixing desk, so the sound was brilliant. And miraculously the seats directly next to me were some of the very few ones not taken. Bonus corona safety activated!
My last uhm.. "complaint" is of course that I could only guess what Amalie Bruun was joking about between the songs, since this was a danish artist performing in front of a Danish audience. #thanksbabylon

But honestly: This concert was all around wonderful again. Of course I had already seen a closely related show before, but compared to Roadburn it was clearly perceptible that Myrkur had grown a deeper, more confident relationship with these songs.
There was no spectacular production around the band, just the music itself. The most striking visual component was the garment and make-up of the five singers, which made them appear like mixtures of fair ladies and ritual warriors, which as a contrast is often mirrored in Myrkur's music, even though it's not as immediately recognizable in these songs as in her more metal-based albums. Here it was more subtle, but it was there nonetheless.

The main takeway however - no matter if you took the "Folkesange" songs or the "Mareridt" tracks in the encore - could just be boiled down to one single overwhelming impression: beautiful.

And sometimes that is just all you really need.