Look forward to charming percussive fiddlings, beautiful guitar motifs, and repetitive rhythms when the two Danish bands Town Portal and Antistatic fill ALICE with instrumental math rock this September

Antistatic

Antistatic consists of Søren Høi (drums), Mads Ulrich (guitar), and Laust Moltesen Andreassen (guitar). The Copenhagen-based trance rock band came into being in 2019 and quickly garnered attention on the underground scene with their distinctive expression and technical complexity. With a lineup of two guitarists and a drummer, Antistatic creates a trance-inducing fusion of minimalism, ambient, and metal, where classical rock instrumentation is turned inside out and riff-based structures are abandoned in favor of hypnotic, repetitive drum passages, allowing both the audience and musicians to sink deep into the rhythms.

Since 2019, Antistatic has only moved forward, releasing their debut album Relics on the legendary American label Cuneiform Records at the beginning of 2024. The precision and complexity of the band’s carefully assembled rhythms might suggest that loopers and drum machines played a role in the creation of Relics, but the album’s trance-inducing tracks are solely performed by the band’s three members with meticulous precision and rhythmic love. Antistatic must be experienced live, and you have the opportunity when they take over ALICE this September. In addition, new material is on its way from Antistatic, who will release a new album in 2026. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a taste of what’s to come!

Town Portal

Somewhere between dissonance and harmony, chaos and groove, lies the instrumental math-rock band Town Portal. The Copenhagen-based trio’s sound is at once massive and transportive, blending Meshuggah-esque polymeters with jazzy playfulness and melodic aesthetics reminiscent of ’90s noise rock and post-hardcore. It’s intricate, beautiful, and piercing all at once.

Town Portal consists of Christian Henrik Ankerstjerne on guitar, Malik Breuer Bistrup on drums, and Morten Ogstrup Nielsen on bass. The band made their debut (then as a quartet) in 2011 with the EP ‘Vacuum Horror’. Their latest album, ‘Of Violence’, released via Small Pond Studios in 2019, is their heaviest and most minimalist to date, drawing influence from everything from avant-garde metal to minimalistic music. Think early Tortoise, Fugazi, Don Caballero, Unwound, and the aforementioned Meshuggah. If you enjoy any of those, chances are you’ll also appreciate an evening in the company of Town Portal! Currently, they are working on their fourth release, set to come out on their own label, Dream Bureau. We’re looking forward to experiencing both new and old material from one of Denmark’s finest bands in this genre: a math-rock outfit that’s at once crushing and minimal.