Visual and sound artist Astrid Gnosis explores social and emotional collapse through her work — a heady mix of abstract textures, fractured beats, cinematic atmospherics, twisted melodies and off-the-wall vocals. Now living and working in London, Astrid began writing music when she was just 13 years old. She’s crafted sonic installations for exhibitions and art performances, alone and collaborating with other artists. She’s made the soundtracks and sound design for a number of short films, the most recent of which will be shown at the London Short Film Festival 2017.
“Music alone is a vessel, it diplomatically drives consciousness into reflection. Words seemed to limit this journey” she continues “but increasingly I felt the urge to narrow my language, and incorporate more violence into music”, she says, “because for me it is vital to speak of the anger and hopes of my generation, and it is now we’re most angry.”
‘Agnosis’, a conceptual six-track EP is about “tacit conflict and subsequent collapse”, painting a greying, dystopian picture of where our futures might be headed. “ Agnosis means ignorance in greek, this EP is the first part of a cognitive map of fear, strength, faith, fate, love and hate.”
These themes are catapulted into flux across all six tracks on ‘Agnosis’; through the hollowed out ambience on gentle opener, ‘Arab Spring’, the off-kilter experimentalism and crunchy beats of ‘Severe Delays’ to the rebellious, bastardised hard techno of final track, ‘Titan’, Astrid, in her own words, ‘glorifies discomfort’.
While designed to challenge every aspect of the listening experience, Astrid’s work on ‘Agnosis’ — although fiercely bound to her own philosophical and socio-political narrative — is testament to a musician who can match one-of-a-kind sound design with raw, unfiltered musical ideas.
“I speak for an absolute re-envisioning of our belief systems”, Astrid explains, “for the destigmatisation of words and symbols, to discourage fear not with mere entertainment and distraction, but with thought. Thats who I try to be.”
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