B-Side Guys

Tapetown recorded Elias Rønnenfelt live at Musikhusets Great Hall during SPOT Festival 2025, which matters more than it used to. In what they describe as “these AI days,” live sessions are becoming proof of actual human performance rather than just documentation of it. The Danish recording studio, with over 15 years of experience, has captured more than 300 artists and specializes in preserving what they call “the intensity and nerve of live performances” without overdubs or safety nets. For Rønnenfelt, Iceage’s frontman, who recently released his second solo album Heavy Glory to over a million Spotify listeners, this means five tracks captured raw in one of Denmark’s largest venues: “Doomsday Childsplay,” “5,” “Not Worthy,” “Like Lovers Do,” and “Close.”

The recording quality does what Tapetown promises. William Smith recorded, Troels Holm and Rasmus Bredvig mixed at Tapetown, Emil Thomsen mastered. You can hear the room, the audience, the moments where Rønnenfelt’s voice strains against the limits of what he’s trying to express. Since founding Iceage in 2008, he’s built a reputation for albums like New Brigade and Plowing Into the Field of Love that merge post-punk intensity with unexpected tenderness. The live session captures both: the rawness that made Iceage influential and the reflective folk pieces he’s explored in solo work and collaborations with producer Dean Blunt.

What makes this session valuable isn’t just technical execution but timing. Tapetown is currently building a new 130-square-meter studio in a Danish nature reserve, dedicated to exactly this kind of work. As AI-generated music proliferates, recordings like this function as authentication, evidence that Rønnenfelt actually stood in that hall and delivered these performances without digital assistance. His work as a poet and visual artist already demonstrates a commitment to tangible creation over algorithmic efficiency. The live session at Musikhusets extends that philosophy: sometimes the best response to artificial intelligence is insisting on capturing the real thing, room acoustics and vocal imperfections included.