Selected live-gigs worth mentioning
While his DJ-performances mainly focuses on the «dancier side» of electronic music, DJ iDJa also have a calmer more experimental side which comes to expression in his live sets. The starting point is always field recordings from the nature i Sápmi, which he processes in various ways live on stage. In the artist own words:
My artistic vision is the massive destruction of nature that we see happening in Sápmi and elsewhere in the world. I therefore use these nature sounds that I have collected, bring them on stage and tear them apart in front of the audience using various processing techniques. My hope doing so, is to facilitate a deeper connection between the listener and the present moment - and to leave room for reflection. But the result will always vary, so in the end I leave it up to the audience to process what they are hearing and how they want to interpret it.
To get a feeling of the style performed as a live experimental artist, check out these pieces below:
Live performance at Garden, Eriksmåla (Sweden, 2023)
This distinctive project presents a live ambient performance deeply rooted in the artist's profound journey to the abandoned village of Tennvatn in southern Sápmi during the summer of 2023. DJ iDJa's expedition to Tennvatn spanned three days, during which he meticulously recorded the sounds of babbling brooks, wildlife, insects, and the serene ambience of the forest. These recordings layed the foundation for the sound design for a whole performance. Read more about it here.
See the whole performance below:
Live performance on London-based radio station THREADS (2023)
On Saturday the 1st of April, DJ iDJa went live on London-based radio station THREADS to perform a one hour special ambient piece. Together with him was also Danish act Koviljka from Copenhagen. They had earlier done a special spatial sound performance together, and the set was inspired by that work.
The event was streamd live from the Funkhaus Berlin, and came together as a consequence of a colobaration between THREADS, Berlin-radio Etikett - and two independent collectives: Field Conspiracy and FOAD.
Below you find both a sound- and video-recording from the performance.
Sound:
Video:
Spatial sound project, Berlin (2023)
The live act «Artifical Relation To Nature» premiered at The Spatial Sound Festival in Berlin in March 2023.
In the piece, DJ iDJa performed together with Danish act Koviljka from Copenhagen. They premiered the piece at the festival - to great response from the audience.
Below you find both a sound- and video-recording from the performance. It dosen’t quite give the full experience provided by an 8-channel system - still, you get an impression of the atmospheres created.
Sound:
Video (contains a 10 minute snippet from the performance):
... and in this video, DJ iDJa describes the vision behind the piece:
Recording from Performance Class in Berlin (2023)
DJ iDJa has studied electronic music production and performence in Berlin, and during his year of studying in the european capital, the artist got the chance to evolve his style of performing live during the classes he attended at school. In this recording from one of the classes, the artist experimented with using external MIDI-devices with Ableton Live to perform an ambient piece
Here, he also sampled the voice from Sámi slam poet Ida Benonisen (with permission).