FIS

by Zofia Ciechowska, food image by Carlijn Potma

Fis is Oliver Peryman, Tri Angle Records’ producer from Sumner, New Zealand, known for his explorations into the uncharted realms of roaring rhythms that have left most music journalists lost for words. Somewhere between today and tomorrow, Fis and I met online to have a laugh about food and music. What actually happened is Oliver taught me how to transmit a cup of tea over the Internet and revealed that he loves a dad joke or two. Then things got a little bit more serious.

Hey, how are you?

I’m trying to find out whether an EP I put out has come out today or tomorrow, I can’t deal with these time-zone differences between New Zealand and the rest of the world. It should’ve come out today but I don’t know which today they meant. Fuck it, I don’t care. I have my live set ready for my European tour and finishing off some stuff to play. I’m looking forward to getting out of New Zealand. I haven’t left for about 8 years. Come look out my window. There’s the side of the house and some native grasses and ferns, that’s about 8 square metres of New Zealand for you.

So tell me about this recipe you’ve been cooking up for us?

I’m going to go with a ‘downloadable cup of tea.’ It’s starts off like any old normal cup of tea. So, get this, perhaps you might receive a tea order from whoever is on the other end, like, do they want 7 or 8 tea bags or just the 1 or do they want cow’s milk, you know, the white juice from the cow. Then you’ll make it accordingly. I’m not particular about how I make my tea at all. I just like it hot. Boil the kettle, pour the hot water in a mug, add a tea bag, add milk and a teaspoon of honey. For the sake of the recipe, steep your tea for 2 minutes. I add the milk and the honey whilst the bag is in there. I don’t muck about. Let’s just say that I take the tea bag out. Usually.

Now, in order to make a downloadable tea you need an OTT cable, which stands for “Online Tea Transfer”. It has this temporary vaporization technology which vaporizes the tea, turns it into code and sends it to the recipient. The tea does not travel in its original form between destinations. If the recipient has an OTT cable, they can just re-condense it into a hot cup of tea, meeting the specifications they requested. Just hold the mug under the cable, click the prompt on your computer screen, and the tea will come out. It’s like installing any file on your computer. Make sure the OTT cable is screwed in properly, otherwise it can leak into your system, that’s bad. There’s still no technology for sending biscuits, so you might have to torrent them. Once I thought people had sorted it out because I was on my internet browser and it had this thing called cookies. I’ve got a bit of a problem with sweets actually. My brothers and I never really had them when we were growing up. So now that I’m able to afford my own sweets sometimes I do go a bit overboard. I’m usually the one hovering by the food at a party, I just stand there eating and I honestly don’t care. I guess my favourite sweets are jelly snakes and gummy bears, I’ll have those with a cup of tea.
 

How is your new material different to the stuff we’ve already heard?

It’s got to a point where I’ve become quite conscious of the way in which I was making music was making me in return and the way frequencies are affecting my mood as a maker, and my general wellbeing. I was wondering whether the music I’ve been making over the last 2-3 years is actually healthy for me. It might connect differently with other people which is fine, but I’ve been trying to move towards music that is still exploratory and is coming from me, but is drawing out something a bit more euphoric and pleasurable rather than pretty aggressive and stampede-y.

Tell me about the musical experiences that have had a profound impact on you in the past?

I grew up in a small town called Sumner, New Zealand, which you just saw out my window. There’s a city called Christchurch here and they have an independent student-run radio station called RDU, they’ve always played fantastic music. I first tuned in at the age of 12 and it continued to blow my mind throughout my teenage years. It happened on a private, low-key basis, it wasn’t really talked about at school. Through that period there was a lot of music coming out of New Zealand which was mostly electronically produced, but just had a spacious dub techno influence. Groups like Pitch Black and Pacific Heights, or this guy called The Nomad, they were all making spacious, ambient, heavy music which had a particular essence to it because it was from here, that was influential music for me because it turned me on to the fact that music can be a deeply significant thing. In the last few weeks I’ve played on RDU which has been cool. Full circle.

Can you try and explain the inexplicable quality of your music?

I had an interview with a guy last year and I had a really long way of saying that I have very little to say about my process. That’s not because I dont want to talk about it, but because a lot of it is a languageless practice. I’ve deliberately used music as a meditative practice and quite often I deliberately remove language-based constructs from my headspace to work purely in a sound world. I’m just reflecting on this upcoming gig in Amsterdam with Pharmakon and I think that she and I share an intolerance for numbness, a desire to cut through anaesthesia and work on a more intuitive level. I want to make room for voices we have that we don’t necessarily get to share on a daily basis. One thing I’m doing is drawing sound from the body, a picture or a feeling of what is happening to me in a meditative state. By meditation I don’t just mean sitting still and focusing on the breath, it can be that, but I also mean general attentiveness and presence all the time and in all things.

How do you feel about the future?

I think it can act as a distraction, it’s something that we’re encourage to imbue with meaning all the time. My upcoming performance could be construed in part as a reaction to the numbness that we get from having the meaning of the present constantly displaced. Bringing people into their situation and requesting that they be fully present, you’ll be able to hear that in my music.

Fis’ Downloadable Cup of Tea 

Boiling water
Bell tea (‘New Zealand’s Morning Tea’)
Milk
Honey
Kettle
 

OTT (Online Tea Transfer, also known as a USB) cable
2 mugs
Jellies
A friend
 

How to make Oliver’s downloadable cup of tea (serves 2)

• Steep tea bag in hot water for 2 mins.

• Add milk and honey. Remove tea bag.

• Hold OTT cable over cup. Hit return. OTT cable will vaporise tea.

• Make sure your friend has their OTT cable plugged into computer to prevent any leaks. They need to click okay when they receive your tea alert.

• Drink tea together over the internet and have some jellies as a snack.

Fis plays OCCII, Amsterdam on 5 June. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members. More info here.