Two AU colleagues have written music together - with death close behind one of them

Mikkel Wallentin presses the button on the coffee machine on the third floor of building 1485 in the Nobel Park. He’s a professor at the Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics at the School of Communication and Culture and has an office on the sixth floor. But it's the only coffee machine in the building, so here the colleagues meet when it's time for a caffeine fix. The humming of this particular coffee machine has also accompanied many conversations between Mikkel Wallentin and his friend and colleague Kristian Tylén. The latter smiles from a black-and-white photo on a poster announcing a concert by the ensemble Løgn&Latin, which the two friends created together. The concert took place in November last year, two days before Kristian Tylén passed away from cancer.

Friends since their student days

Kristian Tylén and Mikkel Wallentin's friendship goes back almost 30 years. They met at university in the late 1990s, when Tylén was studying Russian and Wallentin was studying dramaturgy.

"We were both misfits in the programmes we were enrolled in, and we ended up at what was called the Centre for Semiotics. The centre was about to launch a new degree programme in cognitive semiotics, and we both ended up transferring credits and switching to the new programme in cognitive semiotics," says Mikkel Wallentin, continuing:

Kristian was clearly the shining talent, and I tried to keep up. He was vibrant both as a person and musically.” 

After submitting their Master’s theses, they both applied for a PhD fellowship, Mikkel Wallentin at AU, while Tylén went to the University of Southern Denmark. Both managed to secure office space at the new basic research centre, called the Centre for Functional Integrative Neuroscience. While their friendship had long been established, the foundation for their professional collaboration was laid here, and in the years that followed, they were affiliated with the same research units. After a few years, the two friends, together with their colleagues Joshua Skewes and Ricardo Fusaroli, developed the new Bachelor's degree programme in Cognitive Science, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, followed by the Master's degree programme in Cognitive Science.

Quirky and fearless

Mikkel Wallentin gets up and pulls a sign from a cardboard box reading: "Real World - this way". Then he unveils a device that could easily make Gyro Gearloose jealous. It's a brain dryer, he implies. And yes, an explanation follows: To mark the somewhat abrupt end of the Master's degree programme, which for many students consists of an online graduation diploma, the two colleagues invented a new ritual. Inspired by the Hippocratic Oath, but with a healthy dose of humour added, of course.

"It’s an alternative to the brainwashing that is education. When you finish, your brain is wiped clean so that you can never learn anything new, but also so that you never forget all the amazing things you learned during your education.”

The ritual takes place in the University Park, where the students must take an oath. 

The Hippocratic oath is named after the Greek physician Hippocrates. Ours is called the hypocritical oath and is about all the evil things you promise to refrain from doing with all the skills you have acquired – unless you are paid really well for it ... Students swear this oath before they cross the bridge to the real world," says Mikkel Wallentin, adding:

"These are the kinds of things you could only do with Kristian. It will never happen again that we come up with things like that, because it requires people like Kristian who are sufficiently quirky and fearless, and who aren’t afraid of saying something wrong.

Cancer, coffee chats and music

In the summer of 2023, Kristian Tylén was diagnosed with cancer, and his condition deteriorated significantly during the autumn. But he insisted on coming to work.  

"It was during that period that we spent a lot of time sitting by the coffee machine. Then I asked if we should write a song together. It was mostly to find an excuse to do something together. At least, that was my intention," Mikkel Wallentin says. 

It was a form of distraction, which involved finding something enjoyable to do so that we could avoid thinking about things that weren’t so enjoyable. It's not that we didn't talk about the difficult stuff, but the point was to live while you're doing it instead of grieving in advance."

After New Year's, Kristian Tylén felt significantly better as part of a new treatment. And the music project got off to a good start.

"Suddenly, he sent me a folder with eight melodies he had composed, and I started writing lyrics for them. And during the spring, we wrote 14 songs."

Pernille

At the coffee machine, the two began to discuss who should sing the songs. The choice fell on one of Kristian Tylén's former musical collaborators, Marie Segall.

"And then we started developing a concept where we’d write songs from a woman's perspective, which we thought was both fun and provocative."

Mikkel Wallentin elaborates that in our days, where discussions about gender identity are very prevalent, stepping outside the box one happens to be in can be frowned upon. Especially as a middle-aged man, one must be careful not to step into other people's domains, he finds.

"I thought it was fun and liberating because I didn't have to navel-gaze too much and I could write lyrics with a touch of humour," Mikkel Wallentin says. 

Together, they invented Pernille - the name Mikkel Wallentin would have been given had he been born a girl. The project was named Løgn&Latin (Lies & Latin) – referring to the fact that the songs about Pernille were written by a man and that the music, which is predominantly jazz, also borrows from Latin American rhythms.

"Pernille is my take on a stereotypical, modern, slightly neurotic woman who doubts everything and lives her middle-class life in the suburbs. We have a story that we tell about her at the concerts, which ties the different songs together," he explains.

Last concert

In the summer of 2024, Kristian Tylén turned 50, and to mark the occasion, friends, acquaintances and colleagues pooled together a gift: the opportunity for Kristian, along with a band he had assembled, to record the songs in a studio. In November, the band also played two concerts.

The last one took place at the venue Vestergade 58, where around a hundred students from the first years of Cognitive Science, as well as new students, came to pay tribute to Kristian. The band played absolutely brilliantly. Two days later, he died," says Mikkel Wallentin.

Nu!

Since then, the ensemble has had to redefine itself without Tylén as its natural focal point. Based on recordings from last year, they’re now releasing the album 'Nu!' one year after Kristian Tylén's passing. It is named after a song that’s central to Mikkel Wallentin.

You, now, you. We are here right now. You, now. We are here right now. We are. It is now, you. Yes, I have. I've got you right now. I have... I've got you right here. We only have now. Now. (from the song Nu!, original lyrics in Danish).

"The song is about being present in the moment. It's very banal, but also very beautiful, if you ask me."  

Unfortunately, it wasn’t included in the first streaming version of the album, because a new recording of this song is required. That song, along with others that had sound issues, will be included in a later version of the album, Mikkel Wallentin explains. 

The release is significant for Wallentin. 

"This means that we remember Kristian and that he’s allowed to pass on even more of his talent, and it’s an honour to be part of passing it on."

What’s next?

Whether the ensemble will compose new material in addition to its existing repertoire remains uncertain.

"We've met up to write some new songs. I enjoy working on it with the others in the ensemble, but we need Kristian to be the one who leads. It takes longer, and that's fine. We also need to gauge the mood and find out if anyone wants to listen to it," says Mikkel Wallentin, and continues:

"We don't want to be a tribute band; it needs to have a life of its own."

Mikkel Wallentin explains that promoting the new album, which is so closely linked to Kristian Tylén's illness and passing, is a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, it’s important for Mikkel Wallentin to honour his friend and colleague by bringing their joint project to the world. On the other hand, he admits that it may feel wrong to use his friend's story in the promotion:

It’s an ongoing consideration how much I should cannibalise that narrative. But I have concluded that music is so important that we have to prostitute ourselves," he concludes.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.