Night Music: Efterklang, “The Ghost”

Efterklang is a Danish rock band. I went with a friend a couple of years ago to see them play at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We had some really expensive and tasty cocktails on the roof before the show (it’s fantastic up there, hovering over Central Park), and then made our way down to a medium sized auditorium with excellent acoustics and sightlines for a fantastic show.

I’d never heard of Efterklang, I was tagging along, but I knew they were playing with the Wordless Music Orchestra, which is a small classical ensemble that seems to create interesting hybrids with non-classical music. The first time I saw Wordless Music they performed a symphonic piece written by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, as well as a fantastic piece by Ligetti. It was a fine show, more memorable for the Ligetti, but you have to give Greenwood a lot of credit for stretching. And for the record, I’m not much of a Radiohead fan, but maybe I’m missing something.

Efterklang (which means Reverberation, which is nice) turns out to be these delightful Danish rock guys, who for whatever reasons decided to extend their range into a world involving strings and woodwinds. And a drummer using brushes. And backup singers. This is not my definition of rock music, but it was a wonderful show, which took this rock band all around the world as they performed with different symphonies of players who usually play the classics in each city.

I’m assuming they were paid enough to not regret giving up their day jobs.

Apart from all the prelude, this song is just great, even if the drummer uses brushes.

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