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 






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

Sargon

Lilith

Rheinmetall

Oshkosh

Manticore

Anzu

Perspecta

Pegasus

Leidos

Kotobuki

liquid cartography
sonic wanderings

mappa.editions@gmail.com

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟝
MAP059 Lénok - Langue of Tongue
MAP062 Kult Masek & Petr Vrba - Fumarola
MAP060 Yoichi Kamimura & Olli Aarni - Kōri no ryokō / Jäämatkailu
MAP061 Richard Hronský - Pohreb
MAP064 Areliz Ramos - B side
MAP063 Plume Gril - Unnameable Glory
MAP057 claire rousay & Gretchen Korsmo - quilted lament
MAP058 Adam Badí Donoval - a mirror where the image and the mirror wholly coincided
MAP056 fraufraulein - greater honeyguide
MAP055 - Julek ploski - Give Up Channel

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟜
MAP053 Michaela Antalová & Adrian Myhr - Sing Nightingale
MAP051 michaela turcerová - alene et
MAP052 E/I - explicit isolation
MAP054 Lamina - Sueños acuáticos
MAP049 - Päfgens - Aspect of What
MAP050 - Henrique Vaz - De Silenti Natura
MAP048 Alley Catss - m Helux
MAP047 adaa - …img…
MAP041 Pentu - And I Saw My Devil And I Saw My Deep Blue Sea

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟛
MAP041 Slowfoam - Worlding With Earth
MAP045 VA - Synthetic Bird Music
MAP044 Line Gate - Trap
SKUMAP002 Action Pyramid & Jack Greenhalgh - Mardle: Daily Rhythms of a Pond
046 Adela Mede - Ne L​é​pj a Vir​á​gra
043 Plume Girl - In the End We Begin
039 Forces - Chim​æ​ras
040 Rob Winstone - sifting through heaven
SKUMAP001 Lucie Vítková - Cave Acoustics
030 Symposium Musicum - Symposium Musicum

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟚
038 Nighte - Pin down the dust
036 Kensho Nakamura - Electric Rust
037 Andrew Oda - Back To The Body
031 Baldruin - Kleine Freuden
035 CC Sorensen - Phantom Rooms
034 Alexandra Spence - a veil, the sea
033 Manja Ristić - Him, fast sleeping, soon he found In labyrinth of many a round, self​-​rolled
Grykë Pyje - The Fantastic World of Grykë Pyje
032 Atte Elias Kantonen - POP 6 SUSURRUS

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟙
029 Grykë Pyje - Squirlich Stroll
028 Cucina Povera - Dalmarnock tapes
027 Nick Storring - Newfoundout
025 Lucia Nimcová & Sholto Dobie - DILO
026 Cheryl E. Leonard - Schism
024 Tastin Menu - Stand closer when you have something to say
023 Infant - face first in the entangled

𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘
022 Line Gate - Apex
021 Andrew Oda - SOTTO
020 Cristián Alvear & d'incise - Bow down thine ear, I bring you glad tidings
019 Vlad Dobrovolski - Natursymphony No​.​1 — Spring Music
018 Felicity Mangan - Creepy Crawly
017 Roman Radkovič Collective - Televize
016 Olli Aarni - Mustikoita ja kissankelloja
015 Sarah Hughes - I love this city and its outlying lands
014 Sébastien Branche - Lignes de Fuite

𝟚𝟘𝟙𝟡
013 Grykë Pyje - Collision And Coalescence
VA: UŠAMI / Sound mapping camp - Gemer Gothic Route
012 IQ+1 - Conversaphone Plus

𝟚𝟘𝟙𝟠
011 Sarah Hennies - Sisters by Lenka Novosedlíková
010 Simon Whetham - Open and Closed Circles
009 MP Hopkins - Aeroplanes & Puddles

𝟚𝟘𝟙𝟟
008 Bruno Duplant, Pedro Chambel - Autofictions
007 Catriel Nievas, Sergio Merce - Pampa
006 Diatribes - Sistere
005 Line Gate - Den

𝟚𝟘𝟙𝟞
004 Sarah Hennies: Orienting Response by Cristián Alvear
003 Daniel Lercher & Vinzenz Schwab - Decrecimiento Exponencial
002 Adam Asnan - Carriers, PA
001 Jeph Jerman - 34​°​111'3"N 111​°​95'4"W

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