Grey Filastine is an audiovisual artist born in Los Angeles, based in Barcelona, and often nomadic. He composes a dense transnational bass music that collides the lowest frequencies of dubstep with the highest-level beat science, acoustic strings, voices, and lo-fi street noises. The results are “awesome and delicate… hybrids so fluent they defy classification” (Pitchfork).

Grey Filastine is the composer of a gritty electronic music that collides the lowest frequencies of bass music with the highest-level beat science, acoustic instruments and field recordings. His work often features Javanese indie rapper Nova and avant-garde cellist Brent Arnold. These two can frequently be seen onstage with Filastine at some of the nearly hundred gigs he performs in any year. Filastine also produces award-winning videos, designed a post-crash currency, and conducts public sound interventions. Before getting into digital arts he founded the prototype anarchist marching band the Infernal Noise Brigade. Filastine has lived in a dozen cities but is now firmly based in Barcelona.

This year Filastine dropped Aphasia “a quartet of deftly collaged cuts melding throbbing bass synths and richocheting 808s with concrete sound and live instruments” (The Wire). 2014 also sees Filastine debut “4rray”, a four-screen audiovisual performance using bespoke software that allows the artist to trigger and manipulate video live in sync with music.

Nova grew up singing pentecostal spirituals with her preacher grandfather, koranic recitations in the mosque, and javanese gamelan music in school. She was half of the Indonesian rap sensation Twin Sista, and has been collaborating with Filastine since 2010. When not on tour Nova can be found in Java giving workshops on art and environmental activism.

Nova, like many of this year’s recipients, is a true collaborator. She has been working intensively with Filastine and their combined efforts have resulted in brilliant new music. In addition to being an outstanding vocalist, Nova is also a Hip Hop artist, a community builder, and an activist and advocate in her home country of Indonesia. She has recently started a community coffee shop called Legipait in Malang. It’s the first of its kind in the region and acts as a community hub for local artists. Nova is a multifaceted woman. As artist, activist, and entrepreneur, she is helping to put the roots, rhythms, and culture of Indonesia on the map. 

The “Oligarkh” band will begin the concert. “Oligarkh” is a collage of images, melodies and words, describing different sides of national character. Spiritual, folk, chanson and lyric music decorated with thick bass of bell toll, 8-bit balalaikas and broken rhythms. Using these gears he leads audience from a bright temple into a dark forest, from Kremlin walls to dense village, from ghetto-like suburbs to luxury districts. All his music is built on contrasts of elite and mass culture, of modern and traditional.

*Please note that on the day of the event tickets can be purchased only at the museum ticket office.