FYLKINGEN turns 90: festival August 11–13!

Dear Friend,

With Fylkingen 90! we celebrate ninety years as a unique artistic experimental live performance stage. The festival takes place at Münchenbryggeriet, Torkel Knutssonsgatan 2 in Stockholm.

FYLKINGEN 90! highlights Fylkingen's importance as a world-leading platform for interdisciplinary audio-oriented art and new music, and exposes its rich historical and contemporary position. During the anniversary, we highlight our work as an active player in contemporary music and boundary-crossing sound and performance art, to a broader audience.

The festival offers a wide program of workshops and exhibitions of historical archival material, along with curated programs by Fylkingen's members, other Swedish and international artists, and nightly acts focused on experimental electronic club music. We are open until 03 and the celebration takes place in Fylkingen's stage room with associated multi-channel system, in the immediate area and the landscape around Münchenbryggeriet's industrial complex.

The program reflects Fylkingen's artistic development and gives a foretaste of our future activities. For a recap of the ninety years that the association has been operative so far, see history at the end of the announcement*. A presentation of the artists follows here, with reservation for changes – keep an eye on the website and social media!

The festival FYLKINGEN 90! is produced with support from the Swedish Arts Council.

Anastasia Ax (Sw)
Performance-, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm.
The artistic performances of Anastasia Ax are characterized by subtle yet intense, many times violent, negotiations of material qualities and temper. She uses her own body as point of departure for transformative deconstructions. A summoning up of collisions between industrial labour, audiovisual scenographic installation, tactile exploration and exploitation. Anastasia Ax's amplified assiduous strife with dust, paint stains, gravel, blows and spit, serve as spellbinding narratives breaking staged yet very real barriers.

Anna Kontopoulou Ph.D. (Sw)
Anna Kontopoulou (Ph.D.) is a practice-based researcher, curator, and educator working transversally across cultural institutions, educational spaces, and community groups in London, Stockholm, and Athens. Besides her research, Kontopolou has developed long-term participatory projects, exhibitions and writings at the intersection of art and social issues like the struggles around education, democracy, migration, public housing, body politics, and the politics of care. For Fylkingen 90!, Anna moderates an artist talk with Mark Fell and others.

Cara Tolmie (Sw/UK)
Sound-, intermedia- and multidiciplinary artist based in Stockholm.
& Rian Treanor (UK)
Electro acoustic composer, sound artist and producer based in Rotherham (UK).

Cara Tolmie's artistic practice fluctuates between performance, installation, experimental music and moving images, in works centered around the voice, the body and the complex connections that exist between them. She explores techniques that rethink how we listen and thereby make the political and poetic dimensions of the voice emerge. Cara currently has a solo exhibition at the art space Mint in Stockholm, and exhibited her work at Moderna Museet, KW Berlin, and in other institutions and venues. Cara is a PhD candidate in Critical Sonic Practice at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, developing a vocal practice called Internal Singing.

Rian Treanor re-imagines club culture, experimental art and computer music, presenting an insightful world. Having left a vivid impression with a string of releases on The Death of Rave & Warp sub-label Arcola, Treanor’s debut album 'ATAXIA' for Planet Mu in 2019 established him as both a disruptive and essential new voice in British underground club music. The album 'File Under UK Metaplasm' from 2020 takes inspiration from his residency at the Nyege Nyege collective's Boutique Studio in Kampala in 2018. Treanor has also taken part in artist’s residencies at yU+co[lab] in Hong Kong, Counterflows in India and Shape Platform 2020, and recently performed internationally at venues such as Aphex Twin Curated Warehouse Project (Storbritannien), Mira Festival (SP), Cafe Oto (UK), and Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts (UK).

Cara Tolmie and Rian Treanor meet in a space occupied by sounding inhalations, hedonistic swells, hypnotic rave beats, mimicked samples and meandering word play. Focusing on the expanded edges of voice and computer music and how they merge and escalate one another, their collaboration toys with an effusive form of listening that lifts, releases and encourages the audience to question what they hear.

Daniel Rozenhall (Sw)
Electroacoustic composer and sound artist based in Stockholm
& Sten Backman (Sw)
Visual artist and graphic designer based in Stockholm

A close associate of Stockholm's EMS studios and the Fylkingen venue at the heart of the city's experimental music scene, Daniel Rozenhall has played a low-key but vital role in Sweden since his trio of albums for Firework Editions and Kning Disk, and the 'Rozenhall' compilation, between 2001-2009. In 2019 he released the LP Den Förföljdes Gryning at iDEAL, which someone described as ”unfurling some of the most colourfully chaotic and amorphous sounds this side of Merzbow, Florian Hecker and Cam Deas”.

Sten Backman is a visual artist and graphic designer based in Stockholm. Sten has been involved in innumerable Fylkingen related projects, and runs the design studio Great Big Container.

Fylkingen 90 will have the honour of hosting a screening of audiovisual piece 'Dance of the Aberrant', consisting of hauntingly evocative visuals created by long-time collaborator Sten Backman and new interdimensional electronic musical scores composed by Daniel Rozenhall. The event marks the Swedish release of Rozenhall's new LP with the same title, including cover artwork by Backman and co-released by the UK based label Adaadat in cooperation with Firework Edition Records in Sweden.

Dungeon Acid (Sw/Dk)
Electroacoustic composer and sound artist based in Copenhagen.

For more than 40 years, Gothenburg born Jean-Louis Huhta aka Dungeon Acid has pushed the frontier boundaries of musicality with a massive emphasis on syncopated patterns, rhythmic implosions, sonorous transmutations probing down truly altered states of mind. Equally rooted in early days of post-punk, industrial sounds, funk, techno, electro acoustic minimalisms and beyond, Jean-Louis Huhta continues to move, shake and evolve in the most playful manners. A true legend who over the decades has been involved in a myriad of genre defying collaborative arts and music projects, bands and exhibitions. From the early eighties with Cortex, Anti-cimex, Stone Funkers and LPC, to the nineties with Simon J Hartley as Wildplanet, Brommage Dub together with Jesper Dahlbäck, and this side of the millenium with now defunct avant rock outfit Skull Defekts, and OCSID with Edward Graham Lewis and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, to name a few. Currently in projects such as the arts and science project “1+1=3” elaborating on bio-electrical feedback loops through brainwave synthesizing, or the spatial laser and light experimentation unit Northern Acid. Jean-Louis also regularly composes music and soundscapes for contemporary dance, film and theatre.

Jean Louis will perform fredag 11e under his epic techno moniker Dungeon Acid, operating an array of drum-, modular- and synthesized machinery throughout 90 minutes - one minute for each year of the existence of Fylkingen up till now.

Joakim Rosén (Swe)
Electroacoustic composer, intermedia- och multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm.

Rosén has since the beginnings of 2k been active at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion), Fylkingen, VEMS, SEAMS, FRIM, Stockholm Players, etc. He creates music for tape formats (fixed media), radio, film and theater, both as solo artist and in collaboration with others. Rosén is a dedicated DIY-enthusiast constructing sound generating assemblage of basic materials, found objects, recycled materials and thrash. Since 2007, he has directed the experimental collective Allkonstlabbet, originally started by Anna Lord 2006 at Fylkingen. Allkonstlabbet means collaborative events between musicians and other artists, manifesting in unique artworkings. For Fylkingen 90, Rosén will make a performative experiment in between the color spectrum and soundings.

Flygelbus with Felicia Nielsen (Swe)
Play and music workshop through contemporary music and improvisation.

An interactive music performance where we explore a prepared grand piano and its sounds based on a fairy tale. One day Felicia finds a grand piano with a broken leg in an abandoned café. The owner says: The grand piano should be thrown away! But the grand piano doesn't want to be thrown away. Save me! it whispers. I want to sing for you and everyone else, I am almost 100 years old but I still sing very well. How will Felicia get a whole grand piano home? Luckily, she has the help of all the pigeons in town.

Felicia Nielsen is a pianist, teacher and works with interactive music performances based on fairy tales. She is currently working on the album "Mother's Day" recorded on a found and rescued grand piano.

The workshop is recommended for ages 4-7, but open to both young and old children. Free admission for both children and accompanying adults! 15 places/group plus accompanying adults, 45 - 60 minutes

fera (Sw/Dk)
Audiovisual ensemble performance

fera is a theatre performance exploring dysphoria and dissociation as affective, temporal and spatial states. fera operates at the liminalities of realism. Its name, “fera” (etymologically “wild beast” / “to harm”), alludes to what is unbridled and wild in the construction of a life in common. fera is set in an ominous no man’s land, where one waits to be at once included and excluded. fera is a work by Ruby Nilsson, Ba Bladh, Andria Nyberg Forshage, Maja Lindström and Em Silén. fera is a co-production with Inkonst in Malmö where the performance originally premiered in March 2023 at the venue's main stage.

KABLAM (Swe)
Electroacoustic composer, music producer, DJ based in Stockholm.

KABLAM’s interests include maximalism, detailed rhythms, sampling and machine learning. She finds it pretty chill to work with the concepts of materiality and immateriality. What to expect? Donkcore, stonkcore and well, obviously clompcore.

Liselott Norelius (Swe)
Electroacoustic composer, percussionist, intermedia- and multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm.

Percussionist is a percussionist since over 30 years, with a background in trad. African rhythms, experimental rock, world music and free improvisation. She played with various groups a.o. Bitter Funeral Beer Band and Anitas Livs where she during many years developed a personal sound with percussion and sampled sounds. The wish to go further into electroacoustic music grew during a project about acoustics 1996, where she composed her first 8-channel piece. Liselott studied electroacoustic composition at Royal College in Stockholm over the millenium and is, since then, developing her work with live-electronics and realtime processing of various sound sources. Her penchant for rhythmic structures, layers, sound character, and long lines characterise her music. The last years she has composed music for tape, musicians and live-electronics, theater, poetry, sound/video works and dance performances. She is performs as solo-artist and with different constellations, of musicians, dancers/choreographers and intermedia artists, in the fields such as eam, sound art, noise, free improvisation, dance and performance.

For Fylkingen 90! LL will present new complex material for multichannel system involving radio frequencies.

Liv Strand (Swe)
Performance-, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm.
& Marcus Doverud (Sw)
Multi-instrumentalist, choreographer, dancer and performance artist, based in Stockholm.

The art of Liv Strand is an invitation for the listener and the physical materials alike. Her ultra sensuous processes and performances form sculptures and installations. Some on-going collaborations function as capacities for negotiation, concerning ways of doing-together and the topology of hierarchies. For Fylkingen 90!, Liv Strand and her long-time collaborator Marcus Doverud present their performance project Veckad Rytm / Kilted Rhythm.

Mark Fell (UK)
Electroacoustic composer, performance-, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in Rotherham (UK)

Mark Fell’s practice draws upon electronic music subcultures, experimental film, contemporary philosophy and radical politics. Over the past 30 years Fell’s output has grown into a significant body of work – from early electronic sound works and recorded pieces, to installation, critical texts, curatorial projects, educational systems and choreographic performances. Mark is at the sonic front of syncopated electronic processings, pioneering glitch and dub techno, always with an undeniably funk, crisp as starlit oxygen.

Nkisi (UK)
Electro acoustic composer, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in London.

In just a decade, Melika Ngombe Kolongo, known by her alias Nkisi, has become synonymous with a dizzying level of sonic intensity few others have achieved. Born in Congo, raised in Belgium, and based in UK, Nkisi explores the sonic resonances between ancient Kongo rhythms, noise, intense contemporary dance tropes, synthesized melodies, our planetary electromagnetic grid, and experimental improvisation. Combining sweeping polyrhythms with a keen ear for distinctive sound design, her animated electronic compositions reach ecstatic heights, as witnessed on her LP 7 Directions, released on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label. As both musician and visual artist, she is one of the co-founders of NON Worldwide. Nkisi recently launched her label INITIATION and the research platform The Secret Institute, exploring the secrets and mysteries of vibrational rhythm, the ritual as a socio-political tool, invisible gestural sonics, and strategies of trance.

NSDOS (Fr)
Electro acoustic composer, dancer, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in Paris.

Koo Des aka NSDOS fuses music and dance through his visionary construct of a new sonic order. By syncopated abstractions, distortion of tools, through apping and mapping, creative coding and insisting on live feeds of data via motion capture sensors, and other, not least on his own body, interactive pulsating sonorous organisms are coming alive. Dancefloors becomes immersive ecologies where public is invited to push back the limits of subject formation, object, body and sonic environments. Koo Des tours regularly, and works closely with privat and academic research institutes, where he experiments and forms his art in dialogue with the technical development. Koo Des has organised workshops and master classes through a number of international contemporary art venues and digital events, among them the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, the Triennale of Milano and the MAM of Rio de Janeiro.

Ola Nilsson (Sw)
Sculptor, intermedia-, and multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm.

The art practice of Ola Nilsson materialises as stern but eery text images, sculptural objects, still or moving imagery, manifested in carefully measured soundscapes. The projects are highly idea-based and at times elaborated in cooperation with the research department of Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. His art works are regularly exhibited both in Sweden and internationally. Ola Nilsson’s last public appearance was in connection to his international art residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

Fylkingen 90! will be haunted throughout the festival by Ola's audiovisual installations.

Pedram Nasouri (Sw)
DJ, educator and activist

Pedram's sprawling record collection can be heard at late parties at the edge of forests and in basements, as well as at baby raves and Sunday balls at Hägerstens medborgarhus. Expect cosmic children's music, symphonic disco and proggy club music for both young and old.

Sofia Härdig (Swe)
Singer, composer, performance artist and writer

Sissel Wincent (Swe)
Electroacoustic composer, producer and DJ based in Stockholm.

Sissel Wincent’s work is a unique strand of a techno offshoot where heavy kicks meet tangled textures, and create a sound that is triangulated in the middle of bass oriented music styles, minimalism and experimentalism. What emerges is an intrepid intelligence, a joyride throughout liquid architectures stacking licking and pulsating stratifications, rewarding the listener with a profound awareness and deep involvement. Sissel Wincent, who is also a trained architect, began her musical career as part of the studio collective Drömfakulteten in Stockholm. Since 2016, she has worked with Peder Mannerfelt and his record label of the same name where she released two EPs. In 2019, the groundbreaking Assorted Lights came for SHXCXCHCXSH's record label RÖSTEN, and in 2019 she started her own record label KBK REC. Sissel is also a recurring DJ on the Swedish and international club scene.

SISTERLOOPS (Swe/Deu)
Eletroacoustic composers, sound- intermedia- and multidisciplinary artists based in Stockholm and Duisburg.

Sisterloops’ work explores sounds in combination with movement, action and image. The duo was formed in 2013 and is a collaboration between the artists Marie Gavois and Alexandra Nilsson. In their work they expose minute frictions and sound details by stressing, expanding and projecting. Tuning into harsh, nasty expressions of glistering raw femininity. A forceful labour claiming, embodying the space through sound of severity going wild. Their performances are choreographed power dominance squeezing out multilayered meanings. Sound contra movement, image contra sound, all bodies screaming.

The broken Cymbals Project is Sisterloops main ongoing project since 2017. With 60 broken cymbals in an electroacoustic setup they produce trashed rhythms and heavily distorted textures, noisy drones of singing metal and electricity..

Tystnaden by Ulrika Blåeld Wedin & Hervor Sjöstrand (Swe)
Danceperformance

A negative of a photograph where colors are inverted and transformed, the dance moves out of the musical image into silences..

"Dancing with Hervor Sjöstrand 85 years old, retired from the Royal Opera in Stockholm is like moving through different time layers. We have very different backgrounds and training and have moved in different parts of the multifaceted space of dance. When Hervor has danced his way on tiptoe in the great classical full-evening ballets and worked with a number of the world's now famous dance icons, I have crouched down to find my way into the intricate rhythms, club and electronic dance world of the night, and during the day I have shed my skin from bodily trance to move in the space of contemporary dance. Once again, I have the honor of dancing with Hervor and with a modest desire to dissolve time, aging and the beginning and end of space. If those concepts even exist"... /Ulrika

Vinyl Terror & Horror (Dk)
Electro-acoustic composers, and multidisciplinary artists based in Copenhagen.

Greta Christensen and Camilla Sørensen alias Vinyl Terror & Horror explore the turntable and the record material in its rawest and purest nature. This allows them to transform the playback medium into sculptural objects, while using the turntable as an instrument. Their broken records – reassembled into collaged images – deliberately interrupt the musical flow of the samples, facilitating looping patterns and unexpected structures while mixing found sounds from across a wide spectrum of genres, from classic albums, folk and schlager music to vintage movie sound effects. Their live concerts and sound installations are laboratories pushing audiences to a place where abysmal loops ooze off strange revelations.