There is always a mixture of light and dark in Mads Emil Dreyer’s music. At first glance it may appear innocent but hidden beneath the surface are unsettling shadows and subtle distortions. Miniatures follows Dreyer’s critically acclaimed debut album Disappearer (2024) and features world premiere recordings by Scenatet, EKKI MINNA, and Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen.

Naivist glockenspiels

Mads Emil Dreyer (b. 1986) often works in series. The works in his Miniatures series range from intimate chamber settings to sinfonietta format, but all are built around the same setup: toy glockenspiels paired with small electronic keyboards.

Dreyer has developed a technique in which the keyboard sends sine tones to a small speaker (transducer) attached directly to the glockenspiel. When a note is struck, the sine tone is heard both as an electronic sound and as a resonance within the metal bars of the glockenspiel itself.

“You could describe it as a kind of electroacoustic chamber music,” says Dreyer. “It grows out of my experiments with toy glockenspiels and very discreet electronics. The music is very quiet and perhaps a little nativistic.”

A ghostly echo

The music is “miniature” both in its sound and choice of instruments. The small instruments and the mechanical precision may recall a wind-up music box, yet the pieces unfold slowly, allowing even the slightest harmonic or temporal displacement to take on significance.

The discreet use of electronics introduces a barely perceptible slippage in time — a ghostly echo, as is our own universe has been overlaid by another. What begins in childlike simplicity, gradually becomes more disquieting.

Release event and talk

On Tuesday 3 February, a release event for Miniatures will take place at Koncertkirken in Copenhagen. Composer Mads Emil Dreyer and percussionist Lorenzo Colombo will be joined in conversation by music journalist Andrew Mellor. Excerpts from the new recording will be presented, followed by a performance of Dreyer’s Repeater, quietus (approx. 40 minutes) by Lorenzo Colombo.