'Creeping precise drones that bubble and crackle through your mind space like shrinking inside a switched off television with a 9volt battery taped to your tongue'

Biography

Formed in 1999 as a duo, Fonik (originally Psychiatric Challenge) became a quartet in 2001. Working essentially with free improvisation / experimental noise using prepared guitars and electronics, pieces were recorded live in whatever location was possible at the time.

In 2006 Fonik became a core duo again with an even more uncompromising approach, blurring the boundary between music, noise and art.

Performances are generally as a duo but occasionally as a trio or quartet depending on situation / availability of the ‘occasional contributors’ listed below. The duo’s background is varied coming from jazz, avant garde, post rock, industrial and new music with many years of playing and performance hours between them.

Material recorded is occasionally reworked with various sound editing techniques bringing a completely new angle to the material. It’s kind of a combination of traditional improvisation techniques combined with diy technology. These reworks are done in real-time, this becoming an improvisation in itself, with parameters being tweaked as and when required.

Recently Fonik have presented the films ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘Das Kabinet’ providing a live improvised soundtrack (Manchester’s’ Green Room completely sold out) and are currently working on a re-edit of ‘Metropolis’ for 2008. Nosferatu with 5 accompanying soundtracks will soon be available on DVD from Electronic Musik.

Fonik are also making appearances as part of Manchester musicians collective ‘Gnod’. Gnod’s line-up shrinks and swells as the music rotates & expands to reach new frontiers and quite possibly other worlds.

Members are also part of DIY promoters the ‘Warrington Improvised & Experimental Music Collective’ who regularly stage live performances of visiting artists.

Ian runs the Electronic Musik CDr label which has an equally uncompromising approach in choice of releases.

You can download (free !!) a Fonik live set (or 2) here

Fonik are: Harry Gallimore – electronics / percussion :: Ian Simpson – prepared lapsteel / percussion

Occasional contributors: Pascal Nichols - percussion :: Dave Jackson – sax / reeds :: Tim Lyons – trumpet / voice

Releases

EMP053 | Fonik | Resonating

Download: Hi-Fi - Lo-Fi :: Stream: Hi-Fi - Lo-Fi :: Download: Cover Art - Disc Art

Tracklisting: 1. Resonating | 2. Resonating Reconstruction (Noise Research)

Resonating @ The Internet Archive :: Resonating @ Last.fm

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EMP050 | Various Artists | 50:50 An Earth Monkey Productions Compilation

Download: Hi-Fi - Lo-Fi :: Stream: Hi-Fi - Lo-Fi :: Download: Cover Art - Disc Art

Tracklisting: 1. 4th Alternative - Fossil | 2. Clutter - Watersmouth | 3. Dansette Curtsey - The Forests Of Europe Cloak So Much | 4. Cousin Silas - Room 50 Hotel Ereso | 5. Pandacetamol - A Particular Wind | 6. Adrian Carter - Deka (Edit) | 7. Des Slow And The Stop Pills - 50 Mill | 8. Radio Scotvoid - I Love Special K (Crunchtime Mix) | 9. Fonik - Fallout Beach | 10. ry-om - 110706 | 11. Good Noise Bad Noise - In Search Of The 3 Minute Single | 12. Susan Matthews - Moon Tremors | 13. Andrew Deakin - Grasmere Edit | 14. The Cardboard Lung - Backtrouble | 15. Halal Kebab Hut - Algorithmic Poetry

50:50 @ The Internet Archive :: 50:50 @ Last.fm

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Releases with other labels

• Live at Madge’s Kitchen * (2002)
• Live from Saturn * (2002)
• An Evening of Noise * (2003)
• The Bracelet on the String * (2004)
• Fraktured Culture * (2004)
• Noise Reduction System * (2005)
• Forty Five Minutes for Hugh * (2005)
• Both Ends Burning * (2005)
• Provocation of Sound * (2005)
• Live In Liverpool (2005)**
• Northern Solar Noise (2006)
• New Instrumental Usage (2006)
• Fonik (2006)
• Fuel (2007) on Knife in the Toaster Records
• Split with Ford Maddox Brown (2007) on Casual Seizures
• Scatter Graph (July 2007)
• Sounding First (January 2008) 3” ep
• Sounding Second (January 2008) 3” ep

*  as Psychiatric Challenge :: ** as Tokomac :: All others are Fonik.

All cdr’s are £3.00 plus postage (£1.50 in the UK) :: All 3” cdr’s are £2.00 plus postage (£1.50 in the UK)

All are available from Electronic Musik

'Unrelenting Warrington-based champions of experimental music in the UK's most unlikely location. Faust minus the muso elements. Scraps of radio, alien tones, BBC radiophonic (pun intended?) workshop sensibility.' - Golden Lab Records 2007

'The diversity of instrumentation lends itself to variety, excitement, surprise, and overall interest- and entertainment-value. Improv suits small groups, in my view. But it takes more than limited numbers of personnel, of course. To a man, your attention to detail and your listening to one another, the lack of ego, makes for a real shared dynamic.'  – Murmurist 2006

'Creeping precise drones that bubble and crackle through your mind space like shrinking inside a switched off television with a 9volt battery taped to your tongue, on an abandoned beach somewhere in the cosmos, and realising your CB Radio is destroyed and the voices you've been hearing are starting to turn.  Outstanding bleak drones from these Warrington men.' -  Casual Seizures 2007

'Fonik - home-made synth & guitar improvisations to make you hide behind the sofa. Warrington's finest electronic improvisers coming to exterminate your ears "like Stockhausen's worst nightmare"' – Dave Jackson (Solar Fire Trio) 2007

'The new project from the guys who brought you Psychiatric Challenge and every event in Warrington that ever incorporated experimental music. Dark electronics mingle with a tortured guitar in blissful mayhem. Fonik have collaborated with everyone from modern composers such as AMM drummer Eddie Prevost to noise-brats such as Stuckometer drummer Pascal Nichols (who's not a brat, he's actually a dude)' -  Rowf Rowf Rowf 2007

'Lock up your ring modulators, Warrington's finest radiophonic improvisers are back for more sonic attack' – Freeform 2007

'After hearing their performance I felt scoured' – The Cardboard Lung 2007

'Absorb their musical score into available orifices' – Velvet Nightmares Magazine 2007

'An ambient accompaniment of whirrs, clicks and hums of processed sound 8/10' – Owen Hewson 2007

'Everyone in Eat lights digs your sound' – Eat Lights, Become Lights 2007

'It’s nice to hear something like this...it makes me want to play when I listen to it.'- JJ 2007

'Utterly weird, freaked out and just a little unnerving!! Outside of the box is an understatement!! Perfect! Those two ep’s are seriously nerve jangling' – Bad Acid 2008

'Free noise drone junkies' – Bad Uncle 2008

Contact

Fonik @ Myspace | Electronic Musik Label | Noise Research @ Myspace