When Thursday feels like Monday, Roskilde’s Thursday is a bit of a loose end. First Days are over, Orange has opened — but the programme still feels like it’s waiting to wake up. You’ve got the sun on your neck, not quite enough sleep, and a need for something that can bring you back into your body. This isn’t the day with the most must-sees — but here are six names that might surprise, seduce, or at the very least keep you away from camp for a couple of hours.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
Stormzy
British grime with global reach
Stormzy is the kind of name that looks better on the poster than it necessarily sounds live. But it’s still a name you don’t skip. When he hits the stage, he does it with heavy bass, political indignation and grime flows that still sound fresh. The album Heavy Is the Head put him on the global map, and his live shows are often packed with fire, attitude and unpredictability. Is it revolutionary? No. But it is a solid, sweaty Thursday night.
Arca
Deconstructed sound art dressed up as rave
Arca is not here to make you feel safe. Her music is fragmented, ferocious, seductive — and completely irresistible if you’re willing to let go. She works at the crossroads of art and chaos, and her shows feel more like performance than concert. Arca is not necessarily for everyone. But she is for you, if you want to be jolted out of your festival stupor and feel something you can’t quite explain afterwards.
FKA twigs
Baroque futurism with silk-soft brutality
FKA twigs is a creature. Not a pop star, not a performance artist, but something in between. Her live shows blend dance, visuals and vocals into a kind of dreamlike art-pop meditation that can make even the dustiest festival-goer stand still. She is uncompromising, and that can come off as elitist — but if you surrender to it, there’s a reward in every beat. Not for camp parties, but for the soul.
horsegiirL
Hyper-feminine techno with wellington-boot glamour
horsegiirL is what happens when rave culture meets My Little Pony and the club at 3 a.m. She’s TikTok kitsch and Berlin bass in the same breath. It’s theatrical, off-kilter and weirdly catchy. You don’t quite get it — but you dance anyway. It’s not deep, but it is deeply strange. And sometimes that’s exactly what a Thursday needs, when your head is empty and your feet still want a little more.
Anton Westerlin
Melancholic pop with Scandinavian sensibility
Anton Westerlin makes pop that sounds like he’s trying to write the soundtrack to your very best summer evenings — and your worst morning feelings. It’s polished, a little bitter, and often lands exactly where it should. He’s still working out his live identity, but the songs are there. And sometimes that’s enough. Especially on a day when you can’t face any more roaring and distortion.
D1MA
New-school hip-hop with energy and potential
D1MA has some of the energy Thursday is otherwise missing. His sound sits somewhere between trap and pop, and he delivers it with enough attitude to grab you — even if you didn’t know the name before. There’s something youthful and restless about his style, which fits a Roskilde that’s starting to grope for direction in the middle of the dust. Give him a chance — he may be bigger than you think.
