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BIOGRAPHY & PRESS

AUDIOVISUAL

DISCOGRAPHY

LIVE SHOWS

INSTALLATIONS

MIXES

PHOTOS

FLYER FEED

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Described as a "vanguard" by British publication Mixmag and "fearless" by Hyponik, Berlin-based Zoë Mc Pherson is a French-Irish multimedia artist whose practice absorbs elements of performance, sound design, installation art and DJing.

Their breathless third album and AV show "Pitch Blender" is a tight set of cybernetic dancefloor experiments that flicker between the rave and the art space, and arrives courtesy of SFX, the boundary-pushing A/V-focused label Mc Pherson runs with their long-time collaborator Alessandra Leone.

Since the release of their immersive 2018 debut album "String Figures" and its acclaimed 2020 follow-up "States of Fugue", Mc Pherson has performed across the world, appearing at Berlin's CTM Festival, Berghain, Nyege Nyege in Jinja, Uganda, Freerotation in the UK, Meakusma in Belgium, Gijon’s LEV, The Hague’s Rewire festival, Elevate Festival in Graz and Malmö's Inkonst. They're presenting spatial sound installations at Berlin's world-famous MONOM (the world's first 4DSOUND system) and Monom on tour, Silent Green amongst others, and worked alongside bULt, in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to invite musicians to perform and hold workshops at a brand new queer-owned club.

A seasoned collaborator, Mc Pherson maintains an ongoing project with renowned French sound artist Jessica Ekomane. The two performed a special project at Berghain's Halle broadcast by ARTE TV, and their first recording was released on Ostgut Ton's "Fünfzehn + 1" compilation. On the other end of their creative spectrum, Carbon 96 finds Mc Pherson teaming up with US techno producer and DJ Ciarra Black, and the duo's effervescent debut "Carbonated" was released on Peder Mannerfelt Produktion earlier this year. Their most recent project however is 3OK, a frenetic project that was conceptualized in Uganda and matches Mc Pherson's sci-fi sonics with singeli pioneer Jay Mitta's breakneck beats and Malian veteran DJ Diaki's unmistakable soundsystem energy.

Stay tuned for the remix EP of "Pitch Blender," with electrifying reinterpretations by exciting artists that's sure to set dancefloors On Fire.

CREATIVE DIRECTION

SPATIAL SOUND INSTALLATIONS

SOUND INSTALLATIONS

SOLO RELEASES

COLLECTIVE MUSIC RELEASES

COMMISSIONED REMIXES

SELECTED LIVE PERFORMANCES

ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES

TALKS AND WORKSHOPS

SOUND DESIGN

SELECTED AWARDS & GRANTS

SELECTED PRESS

...More press here ...

The Wire interview by Oli Warwick - April 2023

Dazed interview

DJ Mag : Selections
“ZOË MC PHERSON delights in the unpredictable. On their third album, 'Pitch Blender', the Berlin-based, French-Irish artist conjures beats that spark, swerve and explode like rogue fireworks. Across 10 tracks, hyperkinetic drums reference footwork, drill & bass and the high-speed sound of singeli, but their music really operates on a plane of its own. These synapse-snapping patterns and polyrhythms are pieced together thanks to Mc Pherson's impeccable sound design, through which they build a dazzling, widescreen world out of shapeshifting synths, shadowy vocal chops and mercurial bass. It's a mind-melting formula that Mc Pherson has developed over years as a multimedia artist, producer, DJ, live performer and founder of the SFX label and AV platform. They've performed at festivals including Berlin's CTM and Uganda's Nyege Nyege, and have collaborated with artists like Jessica Ekomane, Ciarra Black, and DJ Diaki & Jay Mitta (as 3OK), bringing an exhilarating sense of invention and ambition to every project”

BBC6 - Mary Ann Hobbs Music of the near future : “Blender” track premiere

The Wire - premiere “Wait” track premiere

Exberliner magazine interview

ELECTRONIC BEATS Class of 2021: the artists who brightened up the year

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

GLAMCULT | Interview | An artist that makes us feel the music with every FIBER of our being.

MANIFESTO | filmed interview

ARTE TV live & interview

CDM “The producer’s the one dancing, in new video for Zoë Mc Pherson”

FACT mix Believe us when we say this is one you’ll want to play loud.

Bandcamp best of February 2020 by Joe Muggs
“Each of these jams, whether they flutter delicately or thunder with kickdrums, sounds like ritual music from some post-human society”

Hyponik by Esme Bennett
“Adventurous and elusive, the album is a comprehensive dive into ‘electro-naturalism’, manipulating her own vocal work as an instrument for glitch-rife glossy soundscapes. The result is a rousing body of hybrid techno-artistry for a multiplex of listening.”

DJmag
Zoë Mc Pherson’s latest body of work — to be released this February — is testament to her evolving as an artist in every sense of the word.
‘States of Fugue’ displays her innate talent for melding experimental sounds with the principles of dance music

Boomkat charts 2020

Dissonnant 30 albums we played like mad in 2020

RwdFwd 2020 choice!

SBVRSV Requiem for 2020 - 25 albums

Gin & Platonic favourite albums of 2020

CDM The producer’s the one dancing, in new video for Zoë Mc Pherson

TAZ Revival der Breakbeats

CXEMA live recording and interview by Tanya Voytko
“We were very lucky and experienced freedom. For sure, this kind of crossmedia connection is obviously present in my work.”

Inkonst interview
Panopticon interview
Trax Mag by Jean Paul Deniaud
Qui est zoë mc pherson, la surdouée qui transforme le son de la nature en polyphonie électronique ?

Subbacultcha The Best of Belgium
“With String Figures the interdisciplinary artist from Brussels succeeded in creating a perfect blend of richly layered textures of noise, traditional and club music. This could be a new treasure if you’re into Holly Herndon, Lucrecia Dalt and Lotic”

Boiler room by Paul Hanford
“Live tonight, Zoe and Alessandra’s multidisciplinary methods are an alchemy of old practices finding new technologies. I watch as string figures loop across the vertical phone-shaped screen that are then curiously mirrored in the raised phones of captivated guests: recording, looping and relaying their own experience.”

Nowness by M. Hansen
“Traditional Inuit culture meets techno-futurism in this beguiling audio-visual explosion”

The Wire by Tristan Bath
“String Figures manages to remain as challenging as it is danceable, and Mc Pherson’s electroacoustic blend packs and energetic physical punch.”

Mixmag by Thomas H Green
“With String Figures, Zoë Mc Pherson proves she’s at contemporary music’s vanguard, it’s one of the year’s most intriguing LPs, exploring the area where tribalistic rhythms meet electronica.”

Electronic Sound by JB
“Barring a few examples, most tracks on the project veer from the four/four with polyrhythms taking centre stage, giving the album a looser, tripper feel. « Inoui (and free) », probably the best of the lot, tempers with rhythm almost at a whim, you have to hear the beat-switch around the three minute-mark to believe it. Buy on sight and without though.”

XLR8
“String Figures, exploring the disappearance of cultures as they clash with Westernism and virtual spaces. Bringing in a range of equipment including hardware electronics, throat singing, live instrumentation, and a huge range of ethnographic samples, she uses the idea of "String Figures" (an early means of communication) as a metaphor for this clashing of worlds.”

Bleep
“Dense layers of electronic noise, processed recordings of inuit throat singing and rhythmic persistence come together on this fantastic new LP from sound artist Zoe McPherson.”

A Closer Listen by Richard Allen
“The music feels vibrant and alive: not a homogenization of influences but a collection of disparate sounds; not a melting pot, but an expression of diversity.[...] By giving the Inuit expression (not simply using them as a sound source, but as a continuing thread), she underlines their value. You are important to me, she says. I hear you.[...] She echoes the teaching of Chief Seattle, drawing nature and beast together as one. By integrating international sounds, she suggests the possibility of new tribes, new alliances. While this does not seem to be the direction in which governments are headed, it does seem to be the direction in which artists are headed, testifying to the power of art as social force. The forward-thinking direction of this music suggests the possibility of forward-thinking politics.”

Booooooom
“Leone translates Mc Pherson’s sonic mediations into elaborately choreographed gestures both beautiful and haunting. As Leone describes it, the film captures the dialogue not just between fingers and hands but between bodies, the “continuous weaving” and “patterning of possible worlds and possible times.” Only here: “Zoë is narrator/instigator, conducting carefully orchestrated rituals as a way of thoroughly exploring the relational ties within the concept. The dancers speak their physical language by expanding contracting and interweaving within the string loop.”

The Arts Desk vinyl of the month by Thomas H Green
“For anyone who wishes to hear one of the year’s most fascinating, invigorating vanguard records, it’s a one stop shop.“

Freq by David Solomons
“With String Figures, Mc Pherson has produced a pulsing, undulating serpent of an album. It is a wonderful piece of work, both emic and etic, and prodigiously rewarding in both. Assemble a field kit and make your way through it as soon as you can.”

The Quietus «Escape Velocity» interview by Tristan Bath

RECORDED MIXES

RADIO SHOWS

Bi-monthly show ‘Pulse sur-mesure’on LYL radio :

#0 with Breakwave & Sukitoa O Namau | 2020
#1 with Jessica Ekomane & NVST | 2020
#2 with Ehua & Golden Medusa | 2020
#3 with KLAHRK & Ice Eyes | 2021
#4 with GOD69 & LABOUR | 2021
#5 with Amazinggaijin & NAZIRA | 2021
#6 with DJ AfroOankali & Katatonic Silentio | 2021
#7 with Leala Rain & Sarra Wild | 2021
#8 Jungle & bass music special | 2021
#9 with Jessika Khazrik and Filter Dread | 2022
#10 Ukranian special with EXAEL and Airali | 2022
#11 Kazakh special with Falyakon and Ludwig Wandinger | 2022

Bi-monthly show ‘Pulse sur-mesure’on moved Refuge Radio Worldwide, in Berlin
#12 B2B with Jessica Ekomane