US citizen and permanent Swiss-resident since 2016, Steve Fors is a composer/performer of intra-genre experimental music. He’s explored drone, noise, experimental ambient, and neo-classical genres, performing in Chicago’s and New York’s experimental underground music scene since 2004. He’s released eight solo and collaborative project albums in the past 15 years as Aeronaut, Shovels Beat The Sun, and The Golden Sores. His current project’s debut album, it’s nothing, but still—produced by Siavash Amini and released on the Swiss-based Hallow Ground imprint last year—garnered critical acclaim despite its limited physical release.
Fors continues to explore the physicality of sound through layered cello, guitar, voice, processed tape loops, field recordings, and electronics. Building on the work of such luminaries as Tim Hecker, Lawrence English, and Rafael Anton Irisarri, his approach to sonic maximalism brings with it both a wistful melancholy and raw power. Of late, he’s been exploring microtonality and multi-channel composition/performance; reinforcing his interest in a heightened sensorial approach.
Fors has a Master’s degree in Installation/Sculpture from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Printmaking from Grinnell College. Recent works include a 60-minute sound installation Manufactured Obsolescence, at Tokyo’s √K Contemporary gallery, and several Zürich performances. He will tour Japan in late 2023
and the US in early 2024.
“Fors...weaves in dense layers of electronic and acoustic sound that build in
intensity and complexity. Lush with both beauty and darkness, it is nuanced
and fascinating. [It] comes together as a perfectly unified piece of music...
the pairing of bleak and hopeful is perfect.”
—Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed
“Sometimes, something catches me out of nowhere like a silk thread on
a jagged edge, and the more I try to cut it loose, the more tangled it
becomes. It’s a testament to the richness and depth in Fors’ music...and the
vulnerable connective tissue holding it all together sets it apart.”
—Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
Haunter is k. Arthur Miller from Iowa City who creates guitar based drone/noise.
"Miller draws so many different tones and textures from his guitar. Despite the shifting sonic palettes, he keeps a consistent mood. Miller plucks around on a series of notes as guitars trade escalating and receding wails, rise and fall together, then finally soar off to nearly ear-piercing heights... new sounds drip, melt and bleed from the stratospheric wails, filling in the middle and bass registers. The rest of the piece sounds like an orchestra doing warm ups as it slowly carves a new path through a mountain range.”
-Little Village