Cassette/digital release available from https://soundcloud.com/mappaeditions
https://mappa.bandcamp.com/album/chim-ras

Named after the mythological hybrid of the chimaera, Forces’ first collection for mappa was put together in a similar fashion. The sounds all stem from a fruitful residency at Stockholm’s EMS Elektronmusikstudion in May & June 2022, leading to a bounty of source material with which to build. The sounds and concept are equally chimeric, stringing together disparate and unintuitive jams, the music mimicking the multi-limbed, sewn together beasts of both creative open source coding and destructive multinational concerns who hide their cores amid endless appendages. Like Doctor Moreau, Forces - aka Finnish artist Joonas Siren - weaves wildly varying attributes into something new, from short-circuiting 8-bit dream ambience to fractured digital groans, drones, and noisy freakouts.

Though EMS is best known for its Buchla and Serge modular systems, Forces went ‘digital’ and largely navigated a lesser-known synth rack one can wheel between studios, affectionately known as the ‘90s Wagon’. “It housed different digital rack synth modules,” explains Siren, “ like the super unknown EVS-1 by Evolution Synthesis, a UK company who only produced this one rack synth only and then vanished.” Some truly alien sounds emerge from Forces’ creative misuse of forgotten 90s boxes and sampled modular jams. The result is an erratic trip through mismatched circuitry and digital codes, slipping between emotional artifice and harshly logical music.

The track titles stem from both famous mythological chimaeras and multinational arms dealing conglomerates. “Different quite sinister firms can operate in broad daylight, easily hiding their true nature. Many of these mega-corporations have different branches (like chimeric limbs) that are producing quite normal mundane every-day items, as well as mass-producing weapons.” A dedicated SuperCollider user too however, Siren states how open source coding snippets are also ‘chimeric beings’. “You end up always using some part of some old code and then building completely new work on some old idea,” Siren explains. Despite its misuses, there’s also something hopeful in the malleability of ideas, and the ability to creatively collage the world as it is into something wholly new, even better.

Complete gear list:
SuperCollider
Evolution Synthesis EVS-1
Yamaha TX81Z
Nord G2 Modular
Nord Wave
GRM Plugins
OddVoices website
Omnisphere VST
Vital VST
Diva VST
Waldorf Microwave XT
Serge Modular
Buchla 200 System
Buchla 100 clone 

credits
released August 10, 2023

Recorded, coded, composed, performed & mixed by Forces (Joonas Siren)
joonassiren.fi
www.instagram.com/fffforces/

Recorded at EMS Stockholm, June 2022, with the digital synths of the "90's wagon" synth rack, and the SuperCollider programming language

Artwork by Marutonkun
www.marutonkun.com
www.instagram.com/marutonkun/

Mastered by Adam Badí Donoval
abdonoval.com

Words by Tristan Bath
Photography by Zoltan Czakó

Released by mappa as MAP039 in 2023

Chim​æ​ras

Forces - Rheinmetall (from Chim​æ​ras, MAP039)

contact:
ffforcesss@gmail.com

'Spaun' album by Angelforces (https://soundcloud.com/ang3l_sp1der & Forces) now out on Superpang:
https://superpang.bandcamp.com/album/spaun

'Chim​æ​ras' album out on https://soundcloud.com/mappaeditions
https://mappa.bandcamp.com/album/chim-ras

'Inertia' album out now on www.soundcloud.com/infinitemachine:
https://infinitemachine.bandcamp.com/album/im097-forces-inertia

'Epoch' album out on www.soundcloud.com/ginandplatonic:
https://ginandplatonic.bandcamp.com/album/epoch

'Climate Denial Machine' album out on https://soundcloud.com/bio-future-lab:
https://bio-future-lab.bandcamp.com/album/climate-denial-machine

'Dynamics' album out on: https://soundcloud.com/conditionalrecs
https://conditionalrecs.bandcamp.com/album/dynamics

Plastisphere album out on: https://soundcloud.com/genotcentre https://genot.bandcamp.com/album/plastisphere

WildCat music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Pf0er-_L8

Interview in Paris, 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFp_uQppKG8

live:

2024 
16.6. SWÄG 20 Yrs Fest, Telakka, Tampere
https://www.facebook.com/events/1483074538953807
15.6. Cable Factory, Helsinki, 8 channel ambisonic set
25.5. Eulerroom, online event, 11PM GMT+2
https://youtu.be/OWFGhIQbxiA?t=30
12.3. Petrohradská kolektiv, Prague, Czech Republic
9.3. PLATO Ostrava, Czech Republic:
https://plato-ostrava.cz/en/Program/2024/03/Gin-PLATOnic-Forces-Atte-Elias-Kantonen-Natalie-Plevakova
1.3. data leap @ WHS Teatteri Union:
https://teatteriunion.fi/elokuva/data-leap/

2023 
4.12. Marginalen festival, Viirus Theater, Helsinki
https://www.viirus.fi/en/shows/marginalen-3
22.11. Pertin Valinta, Helsinki with Passepartout Duo and Heta Bilaletdin
https://www.facebook.com/events/1085437109487514
20.10. Üle Heli -  1ÖÖ 23 Klubiöö, Telliskivi Roheline Saal, Tallinn, Estonia
30.9. Drifts festival, Helsinki
12.06. MeetFactory, Prague, Czech Republic
14.01 Noise Traffic @ VTT, Helsinki

2022
8.10. on Twitch as part of Envelope Festival 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NLlTsPgEm8
19.6. Prague, Czech Republic at Genot + Punctum = Forces event @ Punctum
2.4. duo set w/ https://soundcloud.com/ang3l_sp1der @ VTT + EVOL, Keiska, Värvöttäjä, game cafe, Olmi

2021
17.11.2021 Corsica Studios, London
https://igloomag.com/features/iklectik-corsica-studios-nov17-2021
14.8.2021 Hunajanjyvä festival, Kauttua
https://youtu.be/kJBxk_Ftt34?t=17481
13.3.2021 Livestream for Failed Units / TAR, Common Multiverse Initiative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzs4O24nnGA

2020
27.01.2020 Paris, France, Parsimony #3, Espace B

2019
19.10.2019 Üle Heli festival, Tallinn, Estonia
21.9.2019 Turku Kirjakahvila with @susiovet
30.8.2019 @ Oranssi
27.7.19 Ilmiö festival 2019, Turku
17.5.19 Kontula Electronic
12.4.19 DOTEK, Olomouc, Cz (live streaming performance)

2018
12.10.18 @ VTT, Helsinki w /Kevin Drumm, Minna-Kaisa Kallinen
28.9.18 @ B-Galleria, Turku
23.8.18 @ Käpylän lippakioski
19.5.18 @ SIAM - BLISSFULLY YOURS

2017
27.07.17 @ Norberg festival, Sweden
16.04.17 @ HÄXXXAN -club, Putte's

2016
26.11.16 @ SOLA fest 2016
12.11.16 @ HYTKY 20V
01.10.16 @ SIAM
15.09.16 @ SLUMDANCE

Remixes, Compilations etc:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/3923251-Forces-4

Forces - Rheinmetall (from Chim​æ​ras, MAP039)

forces

Forces - Rheinmetall (from Chimæras, MAP039)