@johancaroe

Our friend from CPH Johan Carøe, multi-instrumentalist and composer shares a new mix for a new season. It's "a cinematic spring mix of ambient, experimental, contemporary music and soundtrack. A mix of early and recent influences from new york city and copenhagen."

Johan Carøe - Spring Reeds

The 51st release of katharsis is the album Afterlife by Danish artist Johan Carøe. The album takes shape through a collection of synth vignettes and spectral landscapes, where fragmented strings and ephemeral pads merge into weightless, hyper-lush forms. Created in a period of both new life and impending loss, Afterlife lingers in the space between presence and absence—a fragile transmission of shifting states, quiet relief, and fleeting sonic imprints. It stands as an isolated relic of a time that no longer exists—a collection of echoes, projecting the paradoxical nature of life and death.

Created in solitude on headphones and a MIDI keyboard in a transitional period in life, the album embodies a raw and intimate catharsis—the word in its truest sense. Without the usual studio space, these pieces emerged through line-in synths, VST textures, and fragments of old recordings—saxophone, cello, violin—stitched together like distant memories resurfacing. The absence of microphones and monitors lends the music an eerily virtual quality—a small life in a small box, a stretched-out portrait of a passing moment. It is introspective yet expansive, a meditation on the transient nature of memory, sound, and being.

releases March 31, 2025

mastering by jjjacob
artwork by jjjacob

Afterlife

Early Song

premiere: Johan Carøe - Early Song

pre-order

premiere: Johan Carøe - Theme from Attachment

Arch Waves

A1. Sval

from "Gave In Rest," Sarah Davachi's new album out September 14th, 2018, from Ba Da Bing Records, Preorder here:https://tinyurl.com/y93h4zbl

Gave In Rest

Pre-order

Sarah Davachi - Evensong

Corale + Outro (For String Quartet)

Having spent many years as a soundtrack composer, 28-year-old Johan Carøe now puts out his first solo release, ‘zenmetal’, a seven-track EP filled with minimalistic synth improvisations, tape loops, and sparse string and organ arrangements.

While working on ‘zenmetal’, the Copenhagen-based composer and electronic musician sought a refuge from anxiety - escaping into music performed and constructed on intuition and a spontaneous whim, as opposed to the more premeditated and meticulous way of writing music for film. The result is a series of unassuming sketches that pave way to a deeper level of meditation in his music.

TRACKLIST

zenmetal
failed circle motion
human
charlie
used to be your favorite month but not anymore (w. Sofie Birch)
happy dogs (w. Gabo Barranco)
pink desert (w. Gabo Barranco)

Release date: October 17, 2019

https://soundcloud.com/no-technique

zenmetal

Premiere: Johan Carøe - failed circle motion [No Technique]

Goldberg Variations in Self-Isolation - Aria

Peter Jørgensen is a composer & sound artist based in copenhagen, denmark. 

His current work "...continues to blur the boundaries between the genres of neo-classical, ambient and drone. The music is exquisitely composed with delicate strings weaving through an array of found sounds at a slow and delicate pace. The pieces are full of wonderful textures and sounds and Jørgensen dramatically uses space and silence to give the music added weight."

pressquotes on Gold Beach (Low Point):

"supremely atmospheric album"
-Norman Records

"Gold Beach is a masterful effort that makes a lasting impact"
-A Closer Listen

"Captures an artist in rapid, thrillingly ambitious transition"
-LMYE

"Excellent record!"
-Vital Weekly

pressquotes on Soundtrack_Remix (Under the Spire):

"As a single-disc album, this would be a mightily strong release, but the remix disc makes it all the more essential."
-Boomkat

"Jørgensen has re-invented the album as a creative sun around which a galaxy of ideas and implications rhizomatically revolve. It is a return to the essence of what music by its very nature has always been: A stimulation of all senses, of emotion and intellect alike."
-Tokafi


pressquotes on second album "To" (Low Point):

"It shouldn't take you longer than two seconds to figure out that 
this is one of the releases no to miss this year."
-tokafi

"Drone music of the highest order."
-vital weekly

A piece of work that is instantly striking due to some awesome sound 
design and sublime textures which continue throughout the CD....
Ranging from the powerful to the minimal, the relaxed to the intense 
and pretty much every flavour in between....
A huge recommendation on this one. Wonderful."
-smallfish

"Impressing as a complete and concise statement."
-textura

"This is totally sublime and as it evolves it’s very lovely."
-norman records

Corale + Outro (For String Quartet)

peter jørgensen