This world between the lines

The following conversation between Johanna Borchert, Anders Vestergaard, and Mads Kjeldgaard took place in Johanna Borchert’s apartment in the early part of 2025. A child with a cold was present. We talked about the collaboration between Borchert and Vestergaard to add perspective to this, their first release together as a duo. The conversation was short, but uplifting and added even more depth to their fantastic project. At the conclusion, we went to the hallway to put on our winter coats and leave, but before we could get back into the windy afternoon of Nørrebro, the child with the cold approached us suddenly and sang ‘O Tannenbaum’ in German. I hope you will enjoy the conversation. MK.

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Interviewer: What is the process behind this project?

JB: We were both invited to do a presentation concert at the conservatory, and I think it was there I first heard about your solo project, where I was super inspired and thought: How would I play to this? There’s no need for anything to be added here, but I love it, and I want to be part of it. I think we met each other on the street here. We’re neighbors. And I had a rehearsal space right here on Nørrebro, and I think we just thought, why don’t we play together more often, just like a meditation or something, because your (AV) solo project was very much about that. It’s a kind of healing or a meditation of sorts—a way to enter a particular state of mind that makes you feel good. I had been thinking a lot about how music can have healing abilities.

AV: Yeah, and then our project started with me playing some of the things I had developed for my solo projects, and then we improvised together using those concepts.

Interviewer: Yeah, maybe you should briefly explain what those things are you developed for your solo projects.

AV: Well, I’ve made a series of solo albums. I’ve made three, and two of them are something like repetitive trance drum stuff that I’ve developed or practiced and worked on for years for my own sake, something I’ve done for myself in the rehearsal room. Things that were good for my body to do on the drum kit, something I did with a healing purpose for myself.

Interviewer: And these are a kind of exercise, right?

AV: Yeah, in a way they are kind of exercises for myself, and then I just happened to play concerts with them.

Interviewer: Can you try to give an example of some of these exercises?

AV: It started as a mix of chi gong, and then some drum exercises, and I just created a certain routine where I had to do some of my chi gong exercises, (and) then I had to play a particular rhythm for 20 minutes. And then I made a whole series of things. The exercises are always about playing the same thing, but orchestrating what you play in new ways on the drum kit. And then we just started doing it together, where you (JB) tried in the beginning to learn the rhythms, but then we moved away from that, and instead, it became more about being in that vibe, because it doesn’t make sense on the piano in the same way as on the drums. I mean, playing exactly that rhythm, so it became more of a kind of momentum you had, or a sort of shared gravity in a way that you were in.

JB: It is important for me to get into a kind of floating state, because the music is very rhythmic, and you can hear it’s not random, it’s not just free jazz. It’s still polyrhythmic in an African, wobbly way, where it shifts a bit, and you get more in-between.

AV: Yeah, and the meter becomes unclear. A lot of the constraints you usually hear in rhythmic music dissolve a bit. You don’t necessarily hear the meter or the tempo, but you feel that both exist, though you can’t necessarily decode exactly how, and it stretches out, because it’s elastic, so there’s a lot of space in it for you to be there because you don’t constantly meet a boundary.

JB: It’s not like you play 8 bars and feel like the form is finished.

Interviewer: So there isn’t a predetermined cycle?

AV: There’s always a cycle that can be stretched. You can always feel in some way that it cycles, but you can just stretch it a bit as if the wheel on the bike gradually changes size. Or at least, that’s what we imagine while we’re playing.

Interviewer: But Johanna, you’ve heard Anders’ trance-like rhythms and solo project, but then you come into it with a piano. Can you tell us a bit about what methods you bring into that world, and why?

JB: Yes, on this album, I find my rhythms, my rhythmic world, which doesn’t necessarily align with Anders’ – so they stand apart from each other and are variable in themselves and influence each other, but don’t necessarily connect – or, rather, they do connect but in a very subtle way. Of course, there’s something that connects, because there is a subdivision on the piano that corresponds to Anders’ drums. It always gives impulses that I react to, while still being in my own world. There’s no need for it to fit into a form. It can dissolve or become something else gradually, or something else can appear and take over, so I think the mindset you get into when you do that is very special. For me, it’s spiritual. It moves something inside my brain, and you could probably measure it as a wavelength that resembles deep sleep in the brain, and that’s why it has a healing effect, I think. When I play solo, I often seek exactly that. I love that it opens up spaces where inspiration steps in completely freely, and just guides me, not the other way around. You let go. I’ve tried to figure out what the harmonic foundation should be, and where it should evolve to, and then I end up discarding that, realizing that it’s much better if I don’t have those things limiting my completely free creativity. What we’re seeking in this world is between the lines, which opens up mystical experiences we can’t predict, and for me, that’s divine. That’s where it happens, that’s where I want to go when I play music. I love playing one note, and seeing how it leads me to the next note. The first note dictates the next one, or maybe the space in between, and Anders does that at the same time on the drums.

Interviewer: So how have you made decisions about preparing your grand piano [by opening the grand piano and putting objects between the strings, preventing them from vibrating as normal] and such? Can you tell us a bit about that?

JB: I put some sticks in between the strings. And then I don’t know in advance what sort of sounds will come out of the grand piano when I press the keys, and I haven’t tested it before I start playing.

Interviewer: So you hear it for the first time yourself when you play the music?

JB: Yes. I prefer doing it that way – I’m not a control type. I get inspired by the surprise.

AV: I’m more of a control type, but that side of my music is challenged in this project because Johanna plays all sorts of things which leads me to become more dissolved. My concepts, which I’ve spent a long time developing – get stretched a lot more that way. It’s great.

JB: The sounds we use are well thought out because we’ve been using them for so many years now, and we know how they react, and how they work. I know the sound of the grand piano when I prepare it. But I don’t know exactly how each key will react to different preparations. The best things that come out of me as a musician happen when I haven’t figured them out beforehand. But when I respond musically at the moment, because then it’s the musicality that has 100% control, it’s intuition, it’s something much greater. I believe our abilities are enormous, and we can draw from centuries of musical mastery and knowledge when we open up to it – instead of our idea of what we can individually come up with – we open up to what science calls morphic fields, and that can lead to wonderful things – then anything is possible, things you couldn’t have conceived before.

– Mads Kjeldgaard, Nørrebro, Denmark, 2025.

Supported by

Koda Kultur