Morten Svenstrup
On Wednesday night while looking at our map trying to orientate ourselves we wondered what kind of insane planning results in a train station exiting through a shopping center. Yes we were outside on a rainy Utrecht night trying to work out our up from our down. After several false starts followed by some decidedly unhelpful directions from passers by we were on the somewhat familiar path to Ekko.
We arrived at the venue and after browsing through the artfully designed merchandise we headed into the main hall where Under Byen came on to the tightly cramped stage. This small venue is a challenging prospect for a band with eight members, especially when there are two drummers that also have an assortment of other percussive instruments at their disposal. At the front of the stage was Morten Svenstrup with his cello which resulted in their singer, Henriette Sennenvaldt, hiding at the rear of the stage for the entire concert.
As I had expected and hoped for this band are even better live than on record. They delivered a performance of tightly structure finesse that portrayed an ethereal beauty of shimmering sound-scape. This band make live music that takes your mind into other worlds of their creation. What was amazing about their performance is the amount of space in their music, how they are not afraid to create this space and every single instrument has a perfect place inside it. The two drummers played in unison like left and right hands of some otherworldly body. From the violin & saw playing of Nils Gröndahl to the keyboards of Rasmus Kjær Larsen and guitar sounds of Anders Stochholm we were treated to a night of very accomplished musicianship. In fact some of the band members played a variety of instruments during the course of the concert, a feature I have seen with several Scandinavian bands of late.
I’m not going to go into a song by song detailed review as that would be much too dull and train spotter like. You really need to go see this band for yourself. Here are some pictures from the gig.
Henriette Sennenvaldt
Anders Stochholm
Nils Gröndahl
Rasmus Kjær Larsen
Henriette Sennenvaldt
Morten Svenstrup - photo by Laurence Harms
The gig recommendation is here.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
[...] This band played a top show at the Ekko in Utrecht. There is a review on the Amsterdam Jam site here. Under Byen - Plantage Atmosphere @ Melkweg I have to admit that I only came across this long [...]
August 25th, 2015 at 4:22 pm
I have been working on the topic of time cteuurls and ecological and cultural sustainability for a number of years (see link above for details of publications). I’m currently involved in a project on time use patterns and (un)sustainable resource consumption in two European capital cities (Vienna and Dublin). I would be very interested in getting involved in a European research network that focuses on time cteuurls and (un)sustainability.