Lene Adler Petersen

Over the last couple of years, the Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology has been blowing minds, issuing a startling array of releases which singlehandedly reform the broad understanding of Denmark’s historic movements in sound. Not only were there revelatory reissues of works by Knud Viktor, Alison Knowles, Henning Christiansen, and Per Norgard, but there was that incredible Danish Tape Amateurs 1959 -1976 compilation, each in their own way taking the ear and mind to uncharted depths. For their final release of 2018, they are at it again, this time with a beautiful 10”, rescueing long lost works by Lene Adler Petersen from 1971.

Lene Adler Petersen belongs to a radical generation of Danish artist who emerged during the 1960s, embracing the new mediums of performance art, installation, and film. Her efforts from the period of Se Mor. Nansensgade 1971 / Sangen om Kaffekoppen, the sound works featured on the Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology’s 10”, focused heavily on investigations into the contemporary representations of women, challenging conventional perceptions of aritistic production, which often took form in wild, collaborative performances and works created with her husband, Bjorn Norgaard.

While much of Adler Petersen’s work from this period was brash and confrontational, placing herself at the center of spectacle, Se Mor. Nansensgade 1971 / Sangen om Kaffekoppen, the only two know sound works by the artist, take the listener into more intimate realms. Each is built around the words and voice of Adler Peterson, expressing the ways in which everyday actions, with the organizations of life and work, hold social and political potential. Within Se Mor. Nansensgade 1971 we offered an image of the metaphorical possibilities embedded in Adler Peterson’s immediate surroundings and world, her words threading their way through radio sounds and that clatter of the day, while across Sangen om Kaffekoppen, her voice, cutting through hallow ambience, takes form in delicate song, leaving the impression that we are catching a captured glimpse of simple joy.

Two works of startling mater of fact intimacy and beauty, which, while its hard to believe, have never been released before. The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology, drawing the ear toward yet another crucial and overlooked effort in the history of sound art. An absolute must, produced with the love and care for which the label is rapidly becoming known, on white vinyl with an extensive booklet with a new text by Brigitte Anderberg. Grab this one before it’s gone.