Better Failing

On Nic Krog's new EP and their de-romanticized approach to rave.

A rave is often imagined as a magical experience, a portal to an alternate timeline where the world can be remade, if only for a few hours. It is a mellow unfolding of the public self and its inhibitions—a perfect and delicate process of losing and finding ourselves between beats and other people. It is easy, even when it’s hard, sharing in this feeling that anything could happen, and intuitively balancing different social and personal needs.

The mythology of raving is so compelling because it is sometimes true, which means it can always be true again—the potential obscuring the pressure to relive the experience in a certain way. As McKenzie Wark explains in an interview with Nylon, “There's a tendency to overload the [rave] experience with things that it can't really support. People want it to be utopia, or resistance, or transcendence. All these things. All of the messy things about the world don't actually disappear when you pass through the door.”

Danish-born, Berlin-based artist Nic Krog (formerly Misantrop) observes these complexities through the intersection of sound art, club music, and confessional storytelling. Drawing inspiration from experimental music, '90s queer house and soap operas, the notion of errors as catalysts for creativity is crucial to their approach. Take their colorful label, Foul-Up, which fosters collaboration between sound and visual artists developing new conceptual and sonic paths by embracing chaos and imperfection. This idea is also reflected in Krog's artistic detours, spanning from the intense accounts of raving and depression on their debut album, Reproaching the Absurd, to this year's two distinct releases: the narrative-based audio play, Perfect Pattern, and the outgoing club EP, Better Failing—both released under the artist's own name.

In Krog's artistic practice, club music, and particularly queer rave, are ever-present, yet detached from the romanticized notion of raves as spaces of infinite potential, freedom, and relief from personal and collective anxieties. Instead, they portray a more comprehensive version of clubbing that lends itself to imperfect and possibly more vulnerable modes of coexistence, leaving room for "and also" and "what if.”

On their debut album, Reproaching the Absurd, raving is portrayed as a failed utopia through the raw lens of someone navigating their mental health issues in the club scene. In their frantic yet weary confessional, raving provokes sensory overload, rumination, and the feeling that we're doing it wrong if we don't relax and have fun. The simmering tension between reality and the expectation of raving is central to the way we experience it, even if barely registered.

In their audio play, Perfect Pattern, released in March on Nick Klein's Psychic Liberation, rave appears as just one of the many mise-en-scènes of everyday life. In it, Krog documents personal routines, repetitive rituals and queer relationships during a particularly hectic and anxious period of their life. They construct their narrative with a new openness to rediscovering themselves within Berlin's club scene, embracing seemingly contradictory aspects of their evolving position. Rave is both a backdrop and a tool in this process—something profound and mundane in equal measure.

On their latest EP, Better Failing, rave serves as a soundtrack for personal transformation following a breakup. Rather than creating another piece about heartbreak, Krog explores resignation and cynicism, and how these feelings can be used to discard old patterns. Informed by Jack Halberstam's landmark text The Queer Art of Failure, the EP represents a continuation of their diaristic approach as well as a fun detour into the restorative potential of deconstructed club music. Krog approaches the breakup as a form of failure and a tool for self-analysis after the initial grief. Remnants of the relationship are reevaluated through cheeky defiance of the capitalist, heteronormative ideas of success and love.

If the opening track, "Not Your Night," sounds uncharacteristically conventional at first, it's no coincidence. As the industrial beat abruptly introduces the track, there's a subtle nod to the piece "Part 12-13-14" from Perfect Pattern before it gradually dissolves through a series of interferences: an odd beat, barely perceptible variations in pace, and metallic clangs, all closing in on each other. "Parasite" further restructures these elements, building up to a charming, cacophonous saxophone instrumental by Jeremy Coubrough. Krog's deadpan vocal delivery is juxtaposed with the dissonant maximalism of the soundscape.

In "You Do You," Krog's vocals take center stage, standing out clearly against the irregular, wonky beats. "I don't like the implication of some kind of structure," Krog croons in a sharp examination of heteronormative values. "Win" transforms a critique into a celebration of loss, as failure to conform can open a new path to self-reclamation. "I'm not in for a win," Krog declares, possibly echoing Halberstam's idea that practicing failure well prompts us to fall short, take a detour, and lose our way.¹ The strong no-wave influence in this elegant industrial track signals a punk attitude rooted in the endeavor. The instrumental track "Better Failing" confidently combines this abrasiveness with rave beats, providing an appropriately dark yet joyful ending.

Building on Krog's previous releases, Better Failing combines elements of sound art and experimental club music more cohesively. While most of the tracks appear to follow a traditional structure, this only emphasizes the random dissonances and imperfections that disrupt the fragility of the established order. Better Failing revisits some of the influences present in Krog's early releases, such as the punk sensibility of Misantrop's Limerence and the quirky industrial of Glass Knot's Present Tense, warping them with the influx of noise, jazz, and even dancehall. There's a new playfulness to the way these sounds are collaged together, mirroring the dynamic of narrative meanderings.

On a conceptual level, Krog examines the inconvenient and rarely romanticized feelings, juxtaposing them with the shiny, energetic idea of raving to find messier, more elusive points of connection. Experiments with noise and texture, prominent in their previous work, mostly serve as interruptions to the neat structure of an approachable rave EP, as they embrace failure and error in navigating others' expectations. By sharing the process of self-actualization through sound, Krog proposes more open ways of creating and understanding, both on and off the dance floor.

1. Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Duke University Press, 2011), 121.