PERFECT PATTERN by NIC KROG

The audio play “Perfect Pattern” by Danish artist Nic Krog weaves a narrative about the dynamics of home life, queer relationships, hygiene practices, routine, ritual, and control. The initial spatial audio work was conceived as the final project of Nic Krog’s Master’s degree for the Sound Studies and Sonic Arts program at Berlin’s Universität der Künste. The distributed version of “Perfect Pattern” is a stereo reformatting of the audio play for compact disc, set for release March 2025 on Nick Klein’s Psychic Liberation imprint. “Perfect Pattern” is the first release under Nic Krog’s own name, after changing from their former artist moniker Misantrop with releases and features on Opal, Foul-Up and Lime Lodge.

Their artistic trajectory is characterized through a diaristic approach, recounting mental processes and psychological baggage from growing up as a queer outlier in a smalltown of Denmark. The work traces the metamorphosis of the colloquial introvert to their negotiation of place in the hedonistic capital of Berlin, Germany. Krog further expands:

"As evidenced on my debut album “Reproaching the Absurd” (Opal, 2021), depression was an enduring battle spanning many years which impeded my overall well-being and stifled my creative output. Around the time of creating the album, however, I gradually overcame depression and simultaneously began casting aside my fear of exposing my vulnerability. My new audio play, “Perfect Pattern”, is my first foray into an overt narrative style, presenting a raw portrayal of a different kind of emotional and psychological self-awareness."

“Perfect Pattern” both extends and diverges from Nic Krog’s distinct and volatile blend of bass-heavy club music juxtaposed with subversive sound art and spoken word, cementing Krog’s fabulous misfitism. Twentieth century experimental compositional music (in particular Edgar Varèse's “Ionisation”), 90s queer house music, and most significantly the storytelling of soap operas and Jean-Luc Godard's “Le Mépris” are the formal canon that reinforces the architecture of “Perfect Pattern”. Further, the collaborative efforts of Dennis Cooper and Peter Rehberg for Gisèle Vienne are a mapping for the rhizome of ideas Krog manifests.

Here Krog steps out from behind the veil of the moniker of Misantrop, while not fully departing sonically or thematically, but blending the old and new, the bored and the blue, with meticulous harmony and routine.

Tracklist

1.	PART 1	2:05

2.	PATTERN THEME FOR EDGARD VARÈSE	1:52

3.	PART 3	0:54

4.	PART 4	4:52

5.	PART 5	2:29

6.	TIME LAPSE	0:48

7.	PART 7	2:04

8.	PART 8	2:08

9.	PART 9	1:57

10.	PART 10	1:29

11.	PART 11	1:25

12.	PARTS 12-13-14	5:20

13.	BONUS / PP CLUB	5:55

Credits

released March 15, 2025

Written, composed, performed, programmed and produced by Nicolai Vesterkær Krog, except Part 9 which rewrites a scene from “Le Mépris” by Jean-Luc Godard (based on the book “Il disprezzo” by Alberto Moravia).
“Pattern Theme for Edgard Varése” is an homage to “Ionisation” by Edgard Varése.
Mixed by Mike Davis at Wolfshark Mastering.
Mastered by Glyn Maier.
Photographs by Nicolai Vesterkær Krog.
Design by Dominique Saiegh.

License