Archive

• World premieres from Powell, Fis, Roly Porter & Paul Jebanasam at Berlin Atonal

  

  Berlin Atonal 2017 returns this summer for the fifth edition inviting over 100 musicians, sound and visual artists, performers, and DJs for a five-day stretch between the 16–20 of August. The festival has just announced World Premiere collaborations from Powell x Wolfgang Tillmans, ALTAR (Roly Porter x Paul Jebanasam), and Fis x Renick Bell.

  ALTAR is the surprising result of the new collaboration between Roly Porter and Paul Jebanasam. The performance based on ritual system music will provide the first look at this new project uniting the creative and technical capacities of two of contemporary music’s most powerful composers.

  The electronic music enfant terrible Powell will perform with Turner prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans. The two artists have been collaborating on music which will reach ears for the first time in this live A/V show.

  And the last collaboration sees live-coding mastermind Renick Bell and expert sound designer Fis link up in search of next-level sonic happenings. Starting with an injection of Fis’ gastric, sinuous sound into the cutting-edge expressive and compositional power of Bell’s live-coded algorithms, their performance plays on apparent distinctions between their live modalities.

• Fis & Rob Thorne: Clear Stones LP out now

  
  On the 12th of May Subtext Recordings released Fis & Rob Thorne‘s album: Clear Stones. In this incredibly special collaboration, the Māori sound artist Rob Thorne and the New Zealand born, Berlin-based electronic composer Fis dismantle boundaries in space, time, and genre, juxtaposing Thorne’s living, breathing practice with the weight of modern sound systems.
   
  Made of wood, stone, bone and shell, the instruments of taonga pūoro (translating to ‘singing treasures’) include various oblique-style flutes, horns, percussion, and objects spun. Amongst the instrumentation deployed by Thorne on Clear Stones are the Pūtātara (conch horn), Pūrerehua (bullroarer), and Tumutumu Kōhatu (stone percussion), gifting this album with new sound shapes that are unconventional and completely addictive to the ear. In contrast to Thorne magical sounds, Fis sculpts bold new settings for the music, mired in deep bass and vast synthetic tones, at times pushing Thorne’s wood, stone, and bone into total transformative saturation. The conversation that emerges between these two artists encompasses technology and nature, computers and physical instruments, historical narrative, and the present, perceived secularity and sacredness, framing them all as aspects of one single, conscious whole.
   
  As Boomkat describe the fine interplay between these two deft artists: It’s a dizzying and immersive experience to thread yourself thru, one that neatly dances around and plays into preconceptions that come with FIS’ music whilst rendering it at its most porous, naturalistic and open to elemental influence. You can hear it for yourself via this full stream thanks to The Wire and experience this transformative mix for Bleep full of original material.
   
  Fis and Rob Thorne have just toured Europe in the lead up to the release including dates at Borderline Festival in Athens, Cafe Oto and Mondo Muzak festival in Milan.

  Now booking Fis live + A/V and Fis & Rob Thorne: brandon [at] lb-agency.net

• Fis’ “From Patterns To Detail” LP out now on Subtext + full stream

  

  New Zealand bred, Berlin-based post-bass music visionary Fis has released his game-changing sophomore LP From Patterns To Details on Subtext Recordings on September 23. FACT’s John Twells digs in deep in this interview and album stream, charting the evolution of Oliver Peryman’s journey from forest soundsystem raves to the mighty, immersive dronescapes he is producing today and performing at acclaimed festivals including CTM, Unsound, Atonal, and Sonic Acts. Peryman also discusses his collaboration with tribal Maori musician Rob Thorne at this year’s CTM which will manifest in Spring 2017 and subsequent album(s). From Patterns To Details was inspired by Peryman’s passion for permaculture which evinced by this list of influences for Hypnotik and track by track breakdown with Wireless.NZ as well as being explored further in this otherworldly mix for NTS. Boomkat has adeptly described the listening experience:

  The album’s seven tracks course with a seemingly chaotic, naturally evolving vitality, using an unquantised palette of atomised sounds to model the processes by which nature makes the most efficient use of its surroundings, and its perennial cycle of growth and decay, in a way that we can comprehend beyond verbal communication. Operating on a scale of micro-to-macro pattern recognition, FIS integrates the spirits of rugged landscapes with its flora and fauna in a grittily fluid sort of horizontal gene transfer between personal and external systems … to put yourself thru the process of his album is enlightening in a way that defies words. 

  The English poet Rick Holland, who has collaborated with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins, was so moved by Fis’ work that he wrote a poem for each of the tracks which can be read over at Sounds Of A Tired City. Also look out for an interview in this month’s Wire magazine as well! After recent performances including rural festival in Japan and Berghain, Fis will be presenting a new A/V show in Modena for NODE festival on Nov.11 followed by live sets for Bristol’s Submerge festival on Nov.19 and CS13’s Different Circles x Contort showcase at Corsica Studios in London on Nov.26.

  NOW BOOKING: live A/V, live, and DJ sets brandon [at] lb-agency.net

• Fis’ “From Pattern to Details” LP on Subtext – new A/V show in Autumn

  

  Breaking out from New Zealand’s soundsystem scene with EPs on Samurai Horo and Tri Angle which established him as a producer with a unique vision, FIS follows up last year’s “The Blue Quicksand Is Going Now” LP on London’s Loopy (which made yearend lists from FACT, The Quietus, and Bleep) with an LP “From Patterns to Details” on Subtext September 16, taking his organic textures and engulfing drone washes to a whole new level.

  Inspired by his work as a permaculture designer FIS takes “a self-occurring pattern like the veins of a leaf, contour lines, or the spirals of water” and “draws from the sense of a deeper underlying order.”

  It sees continuity between environment and individual, continuity between external bodies and the internal emotional landscapes that music can communicate beyond the affordances of language. The album embraces technology as something that is not in conflict with the organic processes of nature. Technology is treated as life in a different state. Human beings are gardens in a different state; all temporary forms of the same thing.  From Patterns to Details imagines states of alignment with all, and harmonious design, a complete integration between personal and external systems whether organic or technological. 

  The album is accompanied by a new A/V show which will be debuting in Autumn.

  His recent performances at Berlin Atonal, Unsound, and commission for CTM were highlighted by Electronic Beats, Juno Download, and The Quietus. Dig into his world with this recent interview podcast: Fis in conversation with Mumdance for Boiler Room.

  Now booking live A/V, live, and DJ sets: brandon [at] lb-agency.net

• Littlebig welcomes Fis to the fold

  

  New Zealand born, Berlin-based, Oliver Peryman a.k.a. Fis, was ushered on to the global stage by Tri Angle Records in 2013 with two outstanding EPs hot on the heels of his 2012 Samurai Horo debut.

  London’s Loopy have released his debut LP “The Blue Quicksand is Going Now” this past May to critical acclaim. Of the album, The Wire had to say:

  … it’s exultant. As before, the crudest of percussive motions hobble forward underneath it all, bits of driftwood clacking in the mistral, like the furthest extremes of that heavily compressed hip-slop style from the likes of Brainfeeder. Here, the roof is ripped off and above are the deepest skies. Sonic glimmers with long tails duck and weave through the haze as Fis fuses claustrophobia and vertigo into the same sensation. Groundless sounds, neither up or down.

  Peryman commanded the main stage at Berlin Atonal in both 2014 and 2015 with masterful A/V shows, and he was most recently a stand out surprise guest at Unsound last month. There’s no lack of love for his live shows as evinced by these reviews in The Guardian, The Quietus, and Electronic Beats.

  Fis is set to take on 2016 with an exciting new EP and brand new collaborative performance, details both TBA very soon! Now booking live and DJ sets: brandon [at] lb-agency.net