Aural Aggravation

At a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing the music industry, Hannah Schneider chooses a different path. On her new album In This Room, she insists on presence, intuition, and craftsmanship as the driving forces behind the creation of her music.

For several years, Hannah Schneider has explored what kind of music emerges in specific spaces and special connections—music in dialogue with other artworks or unique environments. Her new album was written and recorded during a two-month residency at Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen. Here, the museum’s historic rooms became the setting for a musical experiment in which both composition and recording were turned upside down: what happens when acoustic instruments become the starting point for modern electronic music?

The result is a sensuous encounter between organic soundscapes, electronic beats, and strong melodies, a living dialogue between human and machine. Several fellow artists joined Hannah Schneider during the recording sessions at the museum, most notably Christian Balvig (When Saints Go Machine, and arranger for BBC proms), with whom she also produced the album and was a key creative collaborator. Danish poet Peter-Clement Woetmann, who has previously worked with Hannah Schneider, co-wrote lyrics for several of the songs with her. Other contributing artists include Caspar Clausen (Efterklang) and Øyunn on drums and vocals.

Hannah’s latest release from the album is a video for ‘The Apartment’, a track which describes the four walls of home closing in around you, as if the oxygen is being sucked out of you. Arranged almost as an old chamber music piece, but with an intense electronic soundscape behind, the track creates a sense of disorientation and bewilderment.

On the video, director Nanna Tange said, “I’ve always been very inspired by Hannah’s music, which in my opinion has a special cinematic quality, and the track ‘The Apartment’ quickly created images in my mind. That simultaneously fragile and grand atmosphere… and the space it gives to let the narrative and the visuals go a little wild.”

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With In This Room, Hannah Schneider continues to cement her position as a singular voice within Nordic electronic music, where introspection, poetry, and enveloping production merge into a quiet yet powerful expression. Her music has been used extensively in film, television and on some of the largest theater stages in Scandinavia and in 2023 and 2024 she won the Danish composers prize ‘Carl Prisen’ together with the contemporary jazz duo Kaleiido, for her work on the albums Elements and Places.

As a composer, Hannah has made a strong mark in recent years, where she has created commissioned pieces for several of the essential museums and cultural institutions across Denmark. From 2016-2021, Hannah was one half of the electronic duo AyOwA, which combine noise pop with vapor wave and melodies with improvisation in an atmospheric and playful mix with a dreamy approach. The duo has received international attention with their remarkable sound and songs, and has received airplay from  BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music and press acclaim from The Huffington Post, Wonderland Magazine and  Clash to name a few. Hannah is also part of the performance duo Philip | Schneider, who create seductive spatial compositions and installations that engage the body, ears and mind. Starting from the voice, they explore the boundaries between the worlds of music and art.

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