DIS FIG’s sound is total provocation.
Taking all the risk, their music is harrowing and mesmerising – all at once. With textural cues from industrial // noise // experimental // trip-hop // techno // more +++, their focus has always been on sonic experiences that alter.
ALT’s own JESS WILLOUGHBY chatted with Berlin-based producer + DJ Felicia Chen (aka Dis Fig) ahead of their performance. Emotional exorcisms live TONIGHT at Badlands Bar [[long weekend]]…
PURGE was definitely a unique time for you. Although you’ve previously mentioned that you aren’t one to bottle up your emotions, this release really does dig deep and release the undefined in you. Playing the material now, how do these feelings // emotions // physicality resonate with you?
It’s been some years since I wrote and released PURGE, so the context of the purge has evolved as life and its circumstances continue to evolve. However, the action and the experience is still quite the same. It’s a process of conjuring inner feelings that are suppressed and trapped throughout the day, as an intuitive reflex for self-preservation, but are always lying underneath. And it is a process that allows them to erupt and release in a safe space.
As a self-professed “choir nerd” when you were growing up, can you describe the process of reconnecting with your ‘voice’ again (in this context)?
My main vocal experience growing up had been within an academic choral setting, where individualism was avoided and uniformity was strived for. I learned to shape my voice in specific manners to match the sound of a greater group so that no single voice would stick out. The repertoire was also mostly traditional, with no room for experimentation. So when I came back to face my voice after losing or neglecting it for almost a decade, it felt strange meeting it alone. I had the opportunity to discover what my individual voice sounded like, and I also had the freedom to search for it wherever I could imagine. This allowed me to lean into using the voice more as a vessel for sound and energy versus as solely a lyrical messenger, and I was able to totally reinvent what I knew as my voice.
Reinventing yourself as a producer in Berlin was a turning point for you. You even note it took a long time to create your own music once you moved there, despite the initial intention being to become a musician there. Can you remember the moment when you were finally able to break through the barrier between the daydream to creation?
For better or worse, I’m a very deadline-oriented person. This means it’s often hard for me to work without some concept of mission in mind. I thank Tianzhou Chen for believing in me enough in 2017 to give me the opportunity of working with him on the score of his performance piece ‘An Atypical Brain Damage’. As my first major project, it pushed me to create a longer format and in a way that had to be malleable to work with the sequence of the storyline. In many ways, it prepared me to work on the story of PURGE.
CAST-OFF is your latest collaboration with artist Alice Z Jones. Honing in on the merge and divide of bodies in crisis and healing practices through art, does this have a personal meaning for you? If so, can you give a hint of this process and how the project served its purpose?
CAST-OFF was birthed during lockdowns and came from the feeling that we as humans are endlessly being infected and corrupted by the digital, socialized world we exist in. Our minds and bodies are being stretched and deformed with each new update, losing more sight of ourselves each time. We searched for clues in Afrofuturism, Japanese cyberpunk cinema, butoh, and shamanistic trance on how to break free. Searching for a way to shed the ‘crisis body’ and unearth our raw identity. CAST-OFF is a part of what we found.
Catch DIS FIG [BERLIN] live on Friday, June 2 at Badlands Bar. Tickets available now here.