Anton Friisgaard

Minor Blossoms is a collection of ambient vignettes, crafted to evoke and nurture inner emergence. Through analog processing and re-amping, Anton Friisgaard conjures nine sonorous petals, guiding listeners into a state of contemplative emergence.

The music is made using reel to reel tape machines, acoustic piano, digital audio editing and granular sampling. Gradually created in process of continuous resampling, processing and recomposing acoustic recordings into. Acoustic sound was fed into analogue and digital processing chains, and from there, alternated shapes and emerged. These shapes, forms and timbres have then been composed into the music of Minor Blossoms.

“I’ve always gravitated towards an inner state where thoughts and emotions blossom on their own – a realm of connections and experiences, hidden beneath the psychological surface of daily life. This state provides a profound connection with what is stored in the spiritual realm. I want this album to be the soundtrack for that inner journey.”
-Anton Friisgaard

Through the joint project ALBUM FOUND and FILM FOUND, we explored loss of control by working with physical mediums of sound and film.

ALBUM FOUND originates from the reel to reel tape loop-based score composed for the experimental animation film FILM FOUND directed by Claudia Munksgaard- Palmqvist. The two products FILM FOUND and ALBUM FOUND was made in a symbiotic and organic process, simultaneously, influencing each other along the way. ALBUM FOUND is made with a special setup of two quarter inch tape machines that let me iterate and develop the tapeloop as it’s playing. The two tape recorders are placed head to head with a tapeloop running between them and which makes it possible to continuously record or delete audio on the tapeloop.

Listen via:
Bandcamp
Streaming

Lea is Hviledags entry to Janushoveds 8 year celebration compilation ‘No Stars, No Compass But The Heart’. The release continues Janushoveds narrative and consists of contributions from 27 artists with over 2 hours of material spanning over 3 cassettes!

Listen via:
Bandcamp

As a response to the war in Ukraine, Janushoved is releasing a relief compilation in order to raise funds for the people of Ukraine.

All proceeds will go directly to support the work of Red Cross inside Ukraine, helping children and their families with relief, food and medical care.

Cover photo by Jenny Sundby
Mastered by John Cleworth
Compiled by Mikkel Valentin Dunkerley

Listen via Bandcamp:
Part I
Part II

Lea is Hviledags entry to Janushoveds 7 year celebration compilation ‘Star Dancers’.

The limited cassette contains four hyperreal memory simulations created during the isolation of pandemic. The four pieces are made with reel to reel tape and deal with memory in relation to technology.
FK54

I recently re-discovered this in my archives, recorded two years ago before a concert at CPH Jazz Festival.
When the song was recorded, it came from an intense feeling of being worn-out from doing Cultural event-work through Diode Culture.

Our cancelled cultural and social lives, has induced a feeling of restlessness and frustration, but also a possibility for peaceful introspection, that is unique to our current, common situation.
It gives us the opportunity to see ourselves from the outside, and what mode and values, one has been cultivating.

The temporal shift between the creation of the song and it’s release, counts so many events, that lead up the surrealistic situation we’re in today.
Because of this, I decided to release this song now, with it’s original project-title.
I hope it can serve as a cross-temporal statement, reaching into the pandemic, from a time that had it’s tribulations too.

Minder I Fire Satser (Memories In Four Movements) is Hviledags debut EP.

The EP is a synthesizer driven four-tracker that works with the theme of memories and explores the dreamy realm in which they exist.
The record touches on the theme in both concrete and abstract ways, for example the track ‘Vi finder vej’ (We Find Our Way) samples a specific memory of the artists own, whereas ‘Sidste Vinter’ (Last Winter) emulates the sound of winters long ago through synthesizers and field recordings.
The EP seeks to bring forth both the sweetness and the melancholy of memories, and tries to be the soundtrack to those that are colored with the alluring nuance of nostalgia.

Listen Via:
Bandcamp

Under the moniker Hviledag, Anton Friisgaard works with his electro-acoustic ambient music. His compositions mixes impressions of analogue, digital and acoustic sound sources, and recorded and archived phrases are designed and altered digitally to create enclosing soundscape-collages. The music focuses on perishability and change as well as the realization of these through presence and time.

As his first full-length release, Hviledag has created the piece ‘Over Mellem Under’. The album is built up from archival recordings and ideas, which has been given new life through post-production, recontextualization and timbral manipulation. The musical expression moves from an eternally reflective tone, which spans from the dark and gloomy to the melancholically beautiful and thoughtful, which in parallel both fantasizes and remembers. In an insisting exploration of slowness, with fragmented and unexpected acoustical elements manipulated and woven together by electronic soundscapes, the album appears as musical still lifes, which can effortlessly slide in the background whilst simultaneously setting expectations of its listener.

‘Over Mellem Under’ is the first release from Danish label A Quiet Room Recording, and the album sees the light of day on September 4th on limited edition vinyl and on all streaming services.

Listen via:
Bandcamp

Played live at Esbjerg Ensembles event ‘Since Brass nor Stone’ in November.
The performance was livestreamed and recorded by danish national radio (DR P1).

The tapeloop was made live on the evening and recorded when Esbjerg Ensembles string quartet played Brahms String quartet no. 1 in C-minor.
The recording was cut into a short tapeloop and played at half speed.
I processed the loop through an mpc 1000, an A&H mixer and a tapeecho.

Afgrund Vind Vand is my contribution to the compilation release Esbjerg Electronic, released by Diode Culture and compiled by me.

Listen via:
Spotify

Soundcloud

The reel to reel tape loop-based work is taken in new directions by a local lineup of composers: Johan Carøe, Bjarke Rasmussen (aka Grøn), Mads Kinnerup, FATÄK, Quiver, Alba Liv, Emil Duvier and Mikkel Oldrup and Mikael Tobias who mastered the remixes in Joel Krozers SixBitDeep studio. The artwork is made by Lille Blomst and features an image of comes from experimental animation film FILM FOUND directed by Claudia Munksgaard-Palmqvist. ALBUM FOUND is originally made with a special setup of two quarter inch tape machines that let Hviledag iterate and develop a tapeloop as it’s playing. The output is a stereo file, with no stems, which posed a creative challenge met by the composers in various ways.

Listen via:
Bandcamp
Streaming

Hviledag remix of Kumi Takahara’s Chant from her debut album See-Through.

Press from FLAU:
See-Through is Kumi Takahara’s debut album, a collection of classical music with a contemporary spirit. Her emotive, indie style is a swirl of raw strings, found sound and glistening piano: part private diary, part daydream. With this collection of remixes, her personal music, recorded in her bathroom, has been connected through the sea to bedrooms around the world. featuring artists are Machionone, Dylan Henner, Zoe Polanski, Vague Imaginaires, Federico Durand, Porya Hatami, Hviledag, Roméo Poirier, Bartosz Kruczyński, The Humble Bee and Earth Trax.

Listen Via:
Bandcamp

Hviledag Rework of Jacob David’s Intet Forbi.

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Bandcamp
Soundcloud

Full score and sound design for Claudia Munksgaard-Palmqvists experimental documentary short – A Visualisation Of A Cut.

Score and sound design created from samples of a sewing machine, coupled with tape loops and the sound of erased audio tape.

The work will premiere af OFF Festival 2024.

An experimental short exploring physical mediums of sound and film directed by Claudia Munksgaard-Palmqvist. I created a textured and tactile soundscape using reel-to-reel tape. The work has been shown on the biggest festivals like Annecy Festival, London Short Film Festival and Vienna International Film Awards.

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In the documentary film “Until the State Do Us Part,” we meet three couples who each face encounters with the system and are squeezed in the tension between love, frustration, and family reunification.

Through the film, we aim to draw attention to how the current rules for family reunification affect individuals, families, and society as a whole.

I did the score in collaboration with Sofie Birch.

Sound Mix for Documentary Short Big Dubb.

The film is a nostalgic ride through the memory of Big Dubb – a true West Oakland boogaloo dance pioneer. As Dubb drives around today’s Oakland he reflects on the social value of dancing in a politically and socially vibrant time.
In his own words, boogaloo is still to this day – “a concept of freedom from the streets of Oakland, that synchronizes with the funk.”

Editing and sound design on various episodes of Genstart podcast, Denmarks most listened to podcast.

https://www.dr.dk/lyd/special-radio/genstart/genstart-2023/genstart-appetit-paa-vaegttab-11802350201

https://www.dr.dk/lyd/special-radio/genstart/genstart-2023/genstart-putins-foretrukne-oel-11802350475

Sound design, music composition and editing of Zetland’s – “Min ven er blevet skudt. Og bilen skal fikses. Her er hverdagen på Vestbredden” a one-off podcast episode and article covering daily life in the occupied West Bank. 

https://www.zetland.dk/historie/s8aabxW5-ae6XddK5-c58f9

Four episodes where we follow journalist Nagieb Khaja’s visit to the West Bank after the 7th of October. Nagieb Khaja interviews human rights activists, artists, and everyday West Bankers, to find out what life under Israeli occupation is like.

I contributed wit Sound Design, Editing and Music Composition as well as Field Recordings from the West Bank. I also worked on the journalistic planning of the story in collaboration with Louise Esbensen and Nagieb Khaja.

Quadrophonic composition and performance for Strøm Festival’s reiteration of MUSIKZAG – the electronic concert on danish ground, in glyptoteket.

The work was a reinterpretation of Gunner Møller Pedersens mater tapes from the original concert in the 70’s.
One of MUSIKZAG’s original creators, 81-year-old Gunner Møller Pedersen participated in the re-enactment, using the original machines and reel-to-reel tapes from 1972, drawing direct threads from the past into the present.

MUSIKZAG was created by the composers and electronic music pioneers Fuzzy and Gunner Møller Pedersen. Their vision was to create a ‘living organism directly addressed to the listeners, as opposed to the industrially created muzak that everyone is being forcefed in shops, offices and public transport’. “We want to sharpen the senses of the listeners instead of dulling them, as commercial industrial music deliberately does,” they said about MUSIKZAG in 1972.

Passive Aggressive review

A 30-minute concert in ‘The Sound Laboratory’ – a studio set up at Musikhuset København where I explored the musical possibilities of a large collection of original sound equipment from the 60s, 70s and onwards.

What does sound equipment and electronic machineries from the 60s, 70s and 80s sound like? When we revisit them with the technology we use today, what can they teach us? Which tones and vibrations hide in their interiors? If we approach them with modern tools and a new understanding, can they do stuff we have forgotten or haven’t tried yet?

Waterphase is a performance installation and a musical system, using the tempi of water drips as a basis to generate an electroacoustic and process-based sound piece. Waterphase is about translating the wild polyrythmic phasing of uncontrolled drips into a musical sound work.

Four lamps individually light up every time a water drop hits them, making the varied tempi visible to the audience. The four lamps reflect in the surface of the water below, creating a mirror effect.

The work has been presented at Gl. Strand Kunstforening and Syddansk Musikkonservatorium.

I do performances on a system of two linked reel-to-reel players.

I record music onto audio tape and play it back from the 2 stereo sets from the reel-to-reel players to create long live-looped transitory loops, that develops throughout a performance.
The sonics are repetitive, ethereal and spiritual and moves between grandiose harmonics, intimate stillness and crushing noise.

Liminal Tapeloops has been performed at:
Intonal Festival, ALICE, Xenon, Inkonst, Koncertkirken, Mayhem, Øen, Christianshavns Beboerhus, Super Aarhus m. fl.

Roskilde Festival debut of our one-off techno impro duo NEUTONE, consisting of me and David Nørlund Wiberg.
Two full hours of improvised techno and sound system music at FLOKKR, in 2019.

Collaboration with Esbjerg Ensemble.
Together with Esbjerg Ensembles string quartet, I got the chance to remix Brahms’ String Quartet No. 1.
The remix was performed live on a reel to reel tape player, an akai MPC1000, a tape delay and an analogue mixer and transmitted live on Danish National Radio – DR P2.

I live-recorded the string quartets concert performance onto a short tape loop capturing, repeating and altering the very performance the audience had just heard.

In 2024 I released my debut album as Anton Friisgaard, Minor Blossoms on VAAGNER.
The album is accompanied by a liveset, played on a dub-inspired setup of a mixer, tape delay and laptop (multitrack sample player).

The liveshow has been performed at Mayhem, 5e, Jolene and uKirke.

Four hours ceremonial improvisation with Sofie Birch in Brorsons Church.

On Friday, April 22, the church space at Brorsons was filled by Sofie Birch, Hviledag, SLØR, and Ingrid Segring Björklund. They transformed the church into an electronic meditation room, where throughout the evening, people could come and go as they pleased. It was a space with room for you and your faith, doubt, and curiosity. A space that enveloped you with sound, light, and allowed for reflection and immersion.