BIOGRAPHY

Zoë Mc Pherson embodies the unexpected. Their vibrant, nuanced music tests sonic extremes and musical pleasure, grapples with politics and raw emotion, shapes fantasy concepts and meditates on reality. Contrasts are hardwired into their projects, performances and collaborations, bringing bold forms into sharp relief — the constant in their art is evolution. 

Mc Pherson has developed an arc of accomplished albums and EPs which strike out into uncharted zones, moving from the acute percussive angles of earlier albums through to more melodious, vocal-charged exploration. The sonic elements shifting within their sound reach from the physicality of soundsystem music to the hyper-kinetic rhythms of singeli, avant-garde synthesis, textural experimentation and the unfiltered emotive impact of club-ready pop. 

Alongside their releases, Mc Pherson has performed live and DJ'd at a steady stream of esteemed events and venues across the world from Berlin's CTM Festival to MUTEK Mexico, The Hague's Rewire to Novas Frequências in Rio de Janeiro. They also undertake a wide variety of installations, commissions and collaborations, taking in residencies with the 4DSOUND System at MONOM in Berlin and Montréal's PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art and curating events with bULt for a queer-run club in Almaty, Kazakhstan. They've performed with French sound artist Jessica Ekomane and worked with Ugandan singeli pioneers Jay Mitta and DJ Diaki as 30K, created sound design for Maison Taskin and Elastique and taught workshops, notably at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing arts, while running a regular radio show at Refuge worldwide.

From leading workshops to artistic direction for professional clients, educational initiatives and personal projects, their multifaceted practice taps into the self-sustaining, DIY spirit of creative communities across continents.

Mc Pherson's own node within the global information exchange is SFX, a multimedia platform they founded in 2020. SFX serves as an outlet for most of Mc Pherson's musical releases and ambitious audio-visual works in collaboration with Alessandra Leone such as the collaborative project XquisiteForce.AV. The SFX.IRL event series also extends the reach of the project into live settings.  Being across all aspects of their creative output, from concept to production to distribution, affords Mc Pherson complete control to carve out their space on their own terms.

Freedom and self-reliance are intrinsic to understanding Zoë Mc Pherson as they stand right now. Possibility beats at the core of everything they do, responding acutely to the intensity of the modern experience and exploring new angles of expression in sharply sophisticated, compelling ways.

PRESS

Beijing ByeByeDisco | article

FACT Signal Path : Zoë Mc Pherson on mangling sound and multimedia collaboration | video interview

DAZED | interview

Hemisphere son | feature

A CLOSER LISTEN | review

The Wire | interview

DJ Mag  | selections series

More press here