Female rulers of Sun Ra’s Saturn colony? Rebel refugees from the eighties synth-pop? Goddesses gibberish trash talk? Hyperactive tone geologists that will blow your head while drilling into the core of this planet? Witty feminist criticism of masculine-muscular free jazz?

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Shitney – aka Maria Faust (EST) on saxophone and effects; Qarin Wikström (SE) on vocals, keyboards, and electronics; and Katrine Amsler (DK) on a small army of homemade string and spring instruments, electronics, and programmed drums – was formed in 2015 to explore the confines and contrasts of the acoustic/electric sonic pallet.

The three members all feed on a background in jazz, however freely improvising that into different levels of abstractions. Interpreted by 3 individually strong voices they bring in components from very different musical territories and morph it into a mutual language.

Their first release, 2017’s EARTH CORE (ILK Music), was a series of experimental improvisations based on the titular subject matter: an imagined excavation of metals and chemicals, and an investigation of physical laws and paradoxes. The album received critical acclaim and a Danish Music Award nomination as Experimental Jazz Album of the Year.

On POST VOCAL - their new recording and second on ILK Music - the trio pivots to even darker, apocalyptic territory while fusing a bold and overtly feminist mentality with their ever-developing mindsets and musical voices. Together, the members of Shitney attack and examine the genre they have named “Post Vocal'' from a multitude of angles and offer a poignant critique of structural bias, masculinity, and misogyny... in the past, present, and assumed future of “modern” society.

Faust, Wikström, and Amsler once again marry the organic with the synthetic as they shed new light on ancient themes and resonate with unmistakable relevance in 2021.

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LINEUP
Katrine Amsler - Micro Guitar, Awillo Springs, Lyra Organismic Synthesizer, Drum Programming
Qarin Wikström - Vocals, Electronics, N/I
Maria Faust - Saxophone, Effects

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MARIA FAUST - Estonian composer and saxophonist, best known for her own large groups Maria Faust Jazz Catastrophe, Maria Faust Sacrum Facere, and several smaller improvisation-based ensembles. She is the recipient of multiple awards and grants, including Danish Music Awards, NILS Prisen, Estonian Jazz Award, and many others.

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KATRINE AMSLER - Danish composer, musician, instrument builder and sound-artist contributing to different types of audio-visual projects. Latest as a sound artist working for game-composer Martin Stig Andersen (Limbo, Inside) on the highly acclaimed 'Control' by Remedy Entertainment and Turtle Rock Studios' 'Back 4 Blood'. In 2021 Amsler won the British 'Sound of the Year Award' presented by The Museum Of Sound and The New BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the category 'Best Artificial Sound'.

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QARIN WIKSTRÖM - Swedish composer and vocalist, best known for her band Kostcirkeln, and as a member of the collective ensembles Sekten and Babakarej. Wikström also works as a contemporary dance composer and performer, as a solo artist under the name Q, and in a number of smaller sized improvisation-based ensembles. She is the recipient of multiple Danish Music Awards, and a winner of Denmark’s National Arts Foundation’s three-year working grant

Liis Jürgens (Viira) (b. April 7, 1983) is a composer, harpist, improviser and experimental animation maker. Her compositions are characterized by figurative thinking and translating the visual into music.
● In 2009 she graduated with a MA in harp performance, under Eda Peäske, from the Estonian Academy of Theatre and Music. At same, she furthered her training in composition with Helena Tulve and studied electroacoustic music with Margo Kõlar.
● She has studied improvisation with Taavi Kerikmäe and Anto Pett; she performs improvised music on a regular basis. 
● She has composed works for symphony orchestra, choir, big and small ensembles, vocalists and solo instruments. In addition to Estonia, Liis Viira’s works have been performed in Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Italy, USA and Austria. 
● She has performed her compositions herself on harp and piano.
● At present Liis Viira is a freelance composer and harpist. She is a member of unique sounding ensemble Una Corda (three plucked string instruments: harp, kannel and harpsichord) and participates in many other solo and chamber music projects. 
● Her orchestra experience includes playing principal and second harp with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (2007-2017), and principal harp with Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Baltic Sea Youth Philharmonic, Kymi Sinfonietta and Estonian Festival Orchestra. 
● Viira studied 2012–2015 at Estonian Academy of Arts animation department and since autumn 2017 she is studying composition (with Helena Tulve and Toivo Tulev) in practice based PhD at Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre to go further with her interest of developing musical and visual compositions simultaneously.

I'm a sound designer, composer and improviser on a modular synthesizer. Almost everything I do is related to sound. In my compositions I like to use sound objects, field recordings, and modular synths so I could have my own unique sounds. 
 I studied sound design for movies in Baltic Film- and Television School and electroacoustic composition in Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre 
 I'm located in Tallinn, Estonia.

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