Danmarks Ældste Sangskat

Danmarks Ældste Sangskat (meaning "Denmark's Oldest Song Treasure" in English) is a Danish art/comedy performance group started in the early 1990s by Odd Bjertnæs, Kim T. Grønborg, Lars Mondrup, Danish/Faroese experimental musician Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester (subsequently known as Goodiepal) and several other local artists from Århus. Danmarks Ældste Sangskat claimed to recreate 9000-years-old prehistoric melodies carved on the mysterious runic stone discovered in 1979 on Tunø island by employees of a non-existent Danmarks Historiske Laboratorier (HistoLab Danmark). The researchers/performers rendered these "Tunø stone" rites and songs with handclaps, sticks, a single flute, and singing/shouting voices. The project gained some notoriety and received coverage in local Danish media, including TV broadcasts. They gave several concerts in Denmark and Iceland, including a show at Martin Lindholm's "Route 66" record store in Århus. Danmarks Ældste Sangskat "researchers" Heino Ploeckeng K.T.G. Brokager Urban Bedekoelle Kresten Worm Hjaeder Koolgaard The hoax was highly elaborate, laying the background story in excruciating detail. While archaeoacoustics is a real scientific discipline, Danmarks Ældste Sangskat's claims were entirely fictional. The "Tunø stone" was one of the first PAGs, or "archaeological phonautograms," to feature large fragments of human voice. As Kim Grønborg explained in June 2004 interview with the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information, the artifact was lost, "accidentally dropped in Tunø harbor," but conveniently only after the sound transfer. The specific procedure, described in Danmarks Ældste Sangskat's earliest articles, was particularly mind-boggling: an ALAG (Atmospheric/Lithophonic Autography) technique of "lapidary reconstruction," supposedly developed by Mongolian sonochemist Stjopr Vjodhdjarkan, occurred by a "distinct electro-transient balance in the air, and the presence of a suitable (chalcedony-containing) quartz structure, curable via a silicon needle through a radon slurry with rostrerium-126 isotope (at least 7.042 gE.) cathode connection". After this absurd process, the signal could be then "processed normally." The story further elaborated, explaining in detail how Paleontology Museum in Irkutsk, Russia, the world's leading institution in "palaeoanthropophonics," contributed to Tunø stone decyphering in secrecy (not to disclose the clumsy accidental loss of national treasury). However, the collaboration was interrupted between 1977 and 1989 for "political reasons;" thus, the project only came to fruition by the 1990s. In 2003, Kristian Vester's private imprint, Mainpal Inv., released a 12" picture disc 2 x Historical Performances By Danmarks Ældste Sangskat, documenting two concerts from Iceland and Denmark. The group also participated in Staalplaat Sound System's renowned 2004 "Yokomono: 110 Lock Grooves" installation, alongside Frans de Waard, Heimir Björgúlfsson (ex-Stilluppsteypa), John Hegre, Jim O'Rourke, Pimmon, and Radboud Mens. In 2007, V/Vm's netlabel Vukzid published VUKZID15 free download release, documenting the '93 radio broadcast from the "Koks i Komakassen" show on local Danish radio channel P4 from Goodiepal's archives. In October 2020, as part of the "UNBOXING: The Goodiepal Collection" exhibition, three members of the group, Heino Ploeckeng, K.T.G. Brokager and Urban Bedekoelle, gave a lecture/performance at SMK (National Gallery of Denmark) in Copenhagen.