MONOM Grand Opening world premieres by Croatian Amor, Helm, PYUR & Thomas Ankersmit on the 4DSOUND SYSTEM 01.12.17 in Berlin, MONOM @ Funkhaus Berlin

To celebrate the grand opening of MONOM - Berlin’s centre for spatial sound - we will begin with 4 world premiere performances celebrating and showcasing the diversity of artists Croatian Amor (posh isolation), Helm (Pan), PYUR (Hotflush) & Thomas Ankersmit who have been brought together by a common desire to explore the potentials of spatial sound as an expressive medium.

Purposely sculpted for this occasion and currently in development, each sonic artwork will be composed using the revolutionary 4DSOUND system during their residencies at MONOM.

Featuring performances by

Croatian Amor

“No matter how harsh the music may be, there's an intangible humanity seems to sit at the center, demanding an emotional response in ways rarely associated with the academic or abstract sides of experimental music,” THUMP MAGAZINE.

Croatian Amor is the solo work of Copenhagen based Loke Rahbek,  known as co-founder of Danish experimental music label Posh Isolation- home of some of the most emotional cosmic nihilism to ever grace our ears - as well as his numerous projects including Damien Dubrovnik, Lust for Youth, Vår and most recently-formed the electronic quintet Body Sculptures (Erik Enocksson, Jonas ’Varg’ Rönnberg, Frederikke ’Puce Mary’ Hoffmeier, Ossian ’Vit Fana’ Ohlsson & Loke Rahbek).

The work of Croatian Amor mixes textures of post industrial with an underlying pop sensibility. There’s often a strong sense of narrative in the releases and cinematic trades to the synth driven music. Thematically the work of Croatian Amor deals with communication and relations, especially how these are subject to change with each new generation. There is an element of fantasy, or maybe even science fiction to the work of Croatian Amor yet through a largely fiction- al and candy-coloured platform, Croatian Amor explores a very real subject matter.

Helm

"Younger reaches skywards, towards the celestial void, and the results are utterly thrilling – a resonant, subtle and masterfully composed opus, in a genre where artists are so often satisfied by blunt frequency abuse and stagnant fugs of ‘mood’," Crack Magazine.

From his base in London, Helm (Luke Younger) has come to the fore as a crucial voice in experimental music today. With a palette that draws from electronic music in its broadest sense, Helm’s work is marked by the thrilling unknowns of exploratory sound practices, and loaded with a tearaway’s attitude. It’s euphoric, narrative-driven music, but it has its despairing qualities. Helm operates the label ALTER, though much of his work has appeared on the highly revered PAN. This includes 2015’s acclaimed album Olympic Mess, a crowded work of influences set in congested dub.

PYUR

“Music showed me that, in the sweet spot between nothingness and existence, one is empowered to fully understand energetic connections and able to initiate extraordinary transformations through all grids and layers of self. Especially now at this time music has the enormous potential and responsibility to become a transformative entity, providing truthfulness and support,” PYUR.

PYUR (Sophie Schnell) is a recent arrival to the electronica scene with a seemingly endless space of potential ahead of her. PYUR’s musical history stretches deep into her childhood, learning her way around a Boss BR-1200 at the age of 12, taking on Logic two years later. Now, at just 24 years of age, having already found her voice in both visual and sonic fields, PYUR offers an exciting new benchmark for contemporary electronica and digital arts. Having provided vocals for Scuba’s All I Think About is Death she went on to release a full solo LP with his imprint Hotflush Recordings.

Her synergistic audiovisual full-length Epoch Sinus came out last October, showcasing a multi-talentedness that transcends medium, arriving at deeper, heartfelt and quantum understandings of frequency. This spiritual aspect of PYUR’s music also has it’s roots in Schnell’s upbringing - her Mother and Aunt are both professional energetic healers who nurtured her own shamanic practice.    

With recent performances at ATONAL on the quadraphonic sound system, and then again at KRAFTWERK as part of Parallax - MONOM is very excited to see what sonic worlds PYUR will conjure in her intensive up and coming residency.

Thomas Ankersmit

“Razor-sharp and incredibly detailed sounds appear in high-definition … Ankersmit constructs a seductive and highly unpredictable sound-poem in which space, non-space, or the illusion of one or the other, play a key role. Uncompromising and revolutionary, with the equipment on the torturing rack … Outright genius,” Sven Schlijper, KindaMuzik.

Thomas Ankersmit is a musician and composer based in Berlin and Amsterdam. Ankersmit thinks of himself as a painter with sound. He doesn’t use samples or a multitude of instruments, just a single analogue Serge Modular synthesizer for all his material, shaping sounds one layer at a time. For his 4D work, Ankersmit combines his Serge with the spatial synthesis of 4DSOUND software, to construct a series of abstract, turbulent sound-landscapes surrounding the listener. Like looking at a hurricane through a microscope, each particle within the turmoil is sculpted in fine detail. Bringing to mind storms, swarms of insects, and chaotic motions impacting on each other, Ankersmit combines 4D sound-choreographies with an attention to resonances in the actual physical space of the performance.

Ankersmit's current residency at MONOM and the Spatial Sound Institute is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL. The piece performed is an iteration of his ongoing spatial explorations, his residency will continue beyond this performance.