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I Am An Instrument + Friends

By definition, no two I Am An Instrument shows are the same. The Copenhagen-based collective plays 100 percent improvised music: the first note is the starting gun for something nobody in the room can predict. Modal jazz, dub and afrobeat form a loose backbone rooted in Copenhagen’s experimental underground, but the shape of it gets decided in the moment. Hard to categorise – “exactly how we like it,” as the band themselves put it.

Morten McCoy and Jonathan Bremer – better known as the duo Bremer/McCoy – meet CHLLNGR’s synths, tenor sax and guitar, Kristoffer Sjelberg’s drums, Eliel Lazo’s percussion and Johannes Wamberg on guitar. For I Am An Instrument, improvisation is also a way of making new musical connections happen: their shows are open formats where new musicians and ideas can step in and shift the direction mid-stream.

Their latest album, Wonder, Wander, released in September 2026, brings in British pianist Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective, Mercury Prize winners in 2023). Gilles Peterson has championed the band on BBC 6 Music and Worldwide FM, as has Joe Kay of Soulection. At Fasching, I Am An Instrument does what it does best: twist, turn, and invent something entirely new, right there on the spot.

LINEUP

CHLLNGR (Steven Jess Borth II) – synth, tenor sax, guitar
Kristoffer Sjelberg (Stunn Gunn) – drums
Eliel Lazo – percussion
Jonathan Bremer – electric bass, double bass
Johannes Wamberg – guitar
Morten McCoy – piano, Wurlitzer, synth