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ThuThe next Polymorphism edition showcases Puerto Escondido-based label and collective NAAFI, assembling affiliates Lao, Faust Bahia and Mexican Jihad. The widescreen, intimate sound world of Suicideyear, and high-tech, futuristic aesthetics of rising Berlin voice Dis Fig complete the evening.
Much like Berlin’s Janus crew, NAAFI collects and absorbs musical trends from the world over at a steady clip and oversees the production of styles from ballroom house to grime to Jersey club and tribal. It maintains a gaze outwards while staying loyal to its home soil; for its own parties, guests are often representatives of labels like Fade to Mind, Night Slugs, and others whose mercurial aesthetic matches that of its own artists.
At Polymorphism 21, Fausto Bahia, one of the collective’s founders, is joined by Mexican Jihad, an artist constantly in search of new peripheries. As much interested in musical edges as the fringes of society, he pushes NAAFI’s poly-peripherical spirit through an influx of genres and sounds. Joining Fausto Bahía and Mexican Jihad is Lao, a current staple of the local scene thanks to his focus on recontextualizing pop music with new local sounds. On top of his output with NAAFI, Lao also heads the more art-oriented, no gender, no border, internet label Extasis. NAAFI continue their European travels with a date an Unsound festival in Krakow the following week.
Berlin Current supported artist Dis Fig combines hi-tech, futuristic aesthetics and hybrid club sounds. First based out of Brooklyn, Dis Fig came up with New York label and collective Purple Tape Pedigree, an incubator for Jersey club, grime, techno, baile, ballroom, rap and R&B mutations. Since moving to Berlin in 2014, she has affiliated with Berlin's Trade party series, home to the likes of Lotic, Soda Plains, Why Be, KABLAM and Mechatok.
Suicideyear produces widescreen emotional landscapes of abstraction, underscored by sonorous concave bass and starry hi-hat showers. Aside from his solo releases, he has been credited with productions for the likes of Yung Lean, Rome Furtune, Main Attrakionz, Ethelwulf, Pepperboy, Little Pain, and Antwon, and was recently touted as: “arguably the year’s most influential producer without a major label placement” by Fader Magazine. Both as producer and DJ, Suicideyear stands out for his remarkable convergence of trap beats and mid-late century American minimalism as well as his intimate and fresh tastes.
The appearance of Dis Fig is supported by the Musicboard Berlin.