Medard Fischer

Biography

A Toronto native and Sydney resident via New York, Medard Fischer creates music as varied and evocative as the places that have inspired it. As 50% of Hidden Shoal duo Down Review and 100% of Tyyson and Arc Lab (released on n5MD, MMBP and Duotone), Fischer’s releases over the past 10 years have taken in warm ambience, avant electro-pop, impressionistic piano etudes and tough electronics. Dropping the pseudonyms, his latest eponymous work distils these disparate touchpoints into cohesive, thematically-driven compositions orbiting the intersection of modern classical music, textured ambient soundscapes, and music for film. In 2014 he self-released Four Songs For Peter Fechter, a lament for the wrongfully killed – a reckoning of injustice. Four Songs for the City of New York, which pays homage to a dynamic, incomparable city, is his first solo release on Hidden Shoal.

News

• Hidden Shoal in Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018 List!

  Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.

  Now for a very brief and unnecessary acceptance speech – we are nothing without our incredible roster of artists, who continually amaze, inspire and surprise us. Thank you all!

   

   

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• New Medard Fischer Single & Music Video – ‘Fundamentals’

  Medard Fischer’s new single ‘Fundamentals’ is an ominous cloud of generative piano strikes, swelling amid a bed of strings and drones. The track draws on the stochastic processes that form the spine of Fischer’s latest album Lucky You. In the accompanying video, monochrome fractals trace the pulse of the song’s sparse melodic fragments, mirroring the track’s hypnotic evolution.

  On Lucky You, Medard Fischer’s creative process was influenced by his father’s struggle with cancer and tragic passing. While coming to terms with his loss, Fischer was intrigued by recent studies suggesting that more than two-thirds of cancerous mutations may be caused by random replication errors, and was inspired to explore how the implications of chance shape lives in both ordinary and profound ways.

  Taking its cues from generative music and sound collage, stochastic processes are central throughout Lucky You; they define timbres, melodies and entire song structures. Elements pop in and out like sparks, driven by random number generators, multi-tiered probability gates and feedback loops cycling through old electronics. Yet, despite its conceptual underpinning, Lucky You has immediate emotional resonance, befitting the circumstances that inspired it. Pieces shift from playful to contemplative and from hopeful to haunting  – tracing contours of moments lived in the shadow of chance, by turns beautiful and tragic.

  Medard Fischer’s music is available for licensing across film, tv, web, games and beyond. Contact us for more information.

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• Medard Fischer “Lucky You” Out Now

  We’re very excited to announce the official release of Medard Fischer‘s epic new album Lucky You. The album is available now via Bandcamp and all good third party stores, including Spotify, iTunes, Amazon et al.

  On Lucky You, Medard Fischer’s creative process was influenced by his father’s struggle with cancer and tragic passing. While coming to terms with his loss, Fischer was intrigued by recent studies suggesting that more than two-thirds of cancerous mutations may be caused by random replication errors, and was inspired to explore how the implications of chance shape lives in both ordinary and profound ways. Taking its cues from generative music and sound collage, stochastic processes are central throughout Lucky You; they define timbres, melodies and entire song structures. Elements pop in and out like sparks, driven by random number generators, multi-tiered probability gates and feedback loops cycling through old electronics. Yet, despite its conceptual underpinning, Lucky You has immediate emotional resonance, befitting the circumstances that inspired it. Pieces shift from playful to contemplative and from hopeful to haunting  – tracing contours of moments lived in the shadow of chance, by turns beautiful and tragic.

  Lucky You, along with Medard Fischer’s other work, is available for licensing (film, tv, web, games and more) via Hidden Shoal. Read more about Hidden Shoal’s music licensing services here.

   

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• Medard Fischer ‘No Input’ – New Single and Music Video

  We’re very excited to share the epic new single, ‘No Input’, from Medard Fischer (Arc Lab, Down Review). Check out the wonderful music video for the song on YouTube or stream it via SoundCloud. ‘No Input’ is cut from Fischer’s forthcoming album Lucky You which sees release on the 25th of May and is available for pre-order now via Bandcamp.

  On Lucky You, Medard Fischer’s creative process was influenced by his father’s struggle with cancer and tragic passing. While coming to terms with his loss, Fischer was intrigued by recent studies suggesting that more than two-thirds of cancerous mutations may be caused by random replication errors, and was inspired to explore how the implications of chance shape lives in both ordinary and profound ways. Taking its cues from generative music and sound collage, stochastic processes are central throughout Lucky You; they define timbres, melodies and entire song structures. Elements pop in and out like sparks, driven by random number generators, multi-tiered probability gates and feedback loops cycling through old electronics. Yet, despite its conceptual underpinning, Lucky You has immediate emotional resonance, befitting the circumstances that inspired it. Pieces shift from playful to contemplative and from hopeful to haunting  – tracing contours of moments lived in the shadow of chance, by turns beautiful and tragic.

  Medard Fischer’s music is available for licensing across film, tv, games, web and beyond. Contact us for more details.
  

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• Eat Your Friends: A Hidden Shoal 10th Anniversary Compilation

  Hidden Shoal is excited to end the celebration of its 10th year of existence with the new compilation album Eat Your Friends, comprising remixes and covers of Hidden Shoal artists, by Hidden Shoal artists. This freely downloadable album not only showcases the wealth of original music released through Hidden Shoal, but also the creative ingenuity and deft musical touch of the remixers and cover artists.

  From searing solar-flared adaptations to delicately reconstructed covers, deep space jam reworkings, and shimmering ambient tapestries, Eat Your Friends reimagines the Hidden Shoal discography in new and beautiful ways, playing to all the strengths of the roster’s dizzying array of talent.

  Includes remixes and covers by: Antonymes, Arc Lab, Glanko, Wayne Harriss, Liminal Drifter, Makee, Chloe March, Markus Mehr, Erik Nilsson, REW<<, Slow Dancing Society, Tin Manzano, Willem Gator, and Zealous Chang  of music by: Arc Lab, Brother Earth, Cheekbone, City of Satellites, Medard Fischer, Gilded, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Kryshe, Memorybell, Erik Nilsson, perth, Slow Dancing Society, Tangled Star, Umpire, and Zealous Chang.

  Eat Your Friends is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and is also streamable via SoundCloud. Listen and then throw yourself into the wormhole as you explore the originals and more work by the remixers and cover artists.  For all the filmmakers, games designers and others in need of engaging music, don’t forget that all tracks in our catalogue are available for licensing (film, tv, games, compilations etc).

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• Arc Lab “Anthem” Out Now + New Music Video!

  Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of Anthem, the brilliant new album by Arc Lab. To coincide with the release we also have the wonderful new music video for album track ‘The Refracting Glass’ to share with you.

  After years away, Medard Fischer’s Arc Lab project returns with Anthem, a retrofuturistic sci-fi travelogue. Folding classic analogue timbres and detuned FM ambience over fragmented radio broadcasts, forgotten NASA program materials and layers of deep space noise, Anthem is in turns menacing and contemplative, forbidding and epic. The album shifts between claustrophobic tension and widescreen, cinematic expanse. Crushes of static and thundering percussion sit alongside diminutive synth studies, all plotted against an almost palpable narrative of anxiety, struggle and, ultimately, salvation. It’s the grandeur of classic space opera, refracting darkly through a contemporary lens.

  “…one of the most original releases in the IDM field in some time…confounding the set-in-stone rules of a stagnant IDM genre” – [sic] Magazine on Arc Lab’s The Goodbye Radio

  Arc Lab is Hidden Shoal artist Medard Fischer’s primary vehicle for musical experimentation – a blank-slate platform on which he has released a diverse catalogue of emotive, conceptual work. Eschewing easy genre classification, Fischer’s output as Arc Lab effectively blends IDM’s technical sophistication with the moving and poignant character of neo-classical ambience and a finely tuned ear for electroacoustic pop. Anthem comes after an almost 8-year hiatus following Arc Lab’s brilliant 2008 album The Goodbye Radio (n5MD), described as “‘genre-defying’ or, perhaps most appropriately, ‘genre-transcending’” (Textura) and as “one of the most original releases in the IDM field in some time” and “downright ingenious” ([sic] Magazine).

  Anthem is available now via BandCamp and all good online stores. Check out the beautiful music video for ‘The Refracting Glass’ over at YouTube.

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• New Arc Lab Single, Album Pre-Orders & Video Teaser

  We’re very excited to announce the release of ‘Through The Burning Glass‘, the first single lifted from the forthcoming Arc Lab album Anthem. On ‘Through the Burning Glass’, Medard Fischer draws inspiration from the majesty of Geogaddi-era Boards of Canada and lends it his own unique twist. Combining deep, propulsive beats with a shifting matrix of synths, the track’s soaring trajectory is truly something to behold.

  After years away, Medard Fischer’s Arc Lab project returns with Anthem, a retrofuturistic sci-fi travelogue. Folding classic analogue timbres and detuned FM ambience over fragmented radio broadcasts, forgotten NASA program materials and layers of deep space noise, Anthem is in turns menacing and contemplative, forbidding and epic. The album shifts between claustrophobic tension and widescreen, cinematic expanse. Crushes of static and thundering percussion sit alongside diminutive synth studies, all plotted against an almost palpable narrative of anxiety, struggle and, ultimately, salvation. It’s the grandeur of classic space opera, refracting darkly through a contemporary lens. Anthem sees release through Hidden Shoal on 28th July.

  “…one of the most original releases in the IDM field in some time…confounding the set-in-stone rules of a stagnant IDM genre” – [sic] Magazine on The Goodbye Radio

  Anthem will see release through Hidden Shoal on the 28th of July with pre-orders now available via Bandcamp. First single, ‘Through The Burning Glass’, is available now for streaming via SoundCloud and a beautiful album video teaser is available for streaming at YouTube and Vimeo.

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• Hidden Shoal is 10!

  Hidden Shoal is extremely excited to be celebrating its 10th birthday this month. It’s hard to believe that back in May 2006, Perth-based musicians Cam Merton, Stuart Medley and Malcolm Riddoch began Hidden Shoal Recordings as a means to put out releases by local artists. Tim Clarke, based in Melbourne, joined the team in 2007. Hidden Shoal has since gone on to become a much-loved independent label and publisher, releasing over 120 albums from a diverse range of international artists and licensing music from its catalogue across film, tv, web and compilation.

  Stay tuned for special anniversary announcements in the coming months!

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• New Trailer for “The Trail Beyond” Feat. Liminal Drifter and Medard Fischer

  We’re excited to share the next trailer for the wonderful in-production documentary The Trail Beyond, featuring tracks from Liminal Drifter and Medard Fischer. You may recall seeing the previous trailer which featured the Erik Nilsson track ‘On and Onward’. The film, which will see release in 2016, documents the innovative Trail Beyond program which is aimed at inspiring and empowering women to achieve their goals and strive for more than they thought possible. Directed by the wonderful Cassie De Colling (founder of Natureel) the documentary will feature a soundtrack comprised of a range of Hidden Shoal artists and tracks. Check out the preview trailer below.

  The Trail Beyond – Race 3 Hong Kong Lantau 70 from Natureel on Vimeo.

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• “Long Range Transmissions” MixTape Edition

  Here we present the MixTape version of Long Range Transmissions, the first in a new series of themed compilations from Hidden Shoal. The album showcases the ambient and neo-classical side of the catalogue, bringing together beautiful tracks from artists as diverse as Robert Pollard collaborator Todd Tobias, British chamber-pop songwriter Chloe March, and American ambient nostalgist Slow Dancing Society. From the delicate piano of Antonymes, Kryshe, Gilded and Medard Fischer, and the celestial experimentalism of Elisa Luu, Markus Mehr and Cheekbone, to the expansive guitarscapes of My Majestic Star, Erik Nilsson and Sleeping Me, Long Range Transmissions is an essential introduction to just one of the many facets of the Hidden Shoal label and licensing catalogue.

  Long Range Transmissions is also available as a free downloadable album via BandCamp.

  “Long Range Transmissions” – A Hidden Shoal Compilation by Hidden Shoal on Mixcloud

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Reviews

• “Eat Your Friends” Compilation Reviewed at DOA

  “Over almost a decade, Hidden Shoal records developed a reputation as a consistently innovative and experimental music label, giving to us music of remarkable qualities whether it was the instrumental excursions of Gilded, the blissed-out indie of My Majestic Star, the electronica of Marcus Mehr, the alt.folk stylings of Kramies – the HSR list of significant talents was a lengthy one. I say was, as in 2014 or thereabouts, the Hidden Shoal label underwent a reorganisation of sorts, and it began to seem that one of the more influential Australian record labels of the recent past was itself going into hiding. Perhaps so, although only to return refreshed, renewed, invigorated and with its varying artistic visions intact – the Eat Your Friends compilation proves that the Hidden Shoal label is properly with us again.

  One thing I’ve found when reviewing compilations is that not infrequently, when I put them into my music players, the tracks separate instead of remaining in their album folder, and that has happened with my copy of Eat Your Friends, encouraging me to view each of the tracks as a single release rather than view the album itself as a cohesive whole. Then there’s the fact that only some of its contributors are already known to me and so, ditching some of my preconceptions about what it’s going to sound like, I began listening to the 11 tracks in a random sequence, and prepared for the unexpected.

  Firstly, there’s singer/songwriter Erik Nilsson’s “Moksha Can Wait”, a song which electronic composer Marcus Mehr has taken and adapted to his subtly developed production sound, a track that begins almost inaudibly and builds to a staggering crescendo of soaring, roaring electronic sound and with Nilsson’s guitar and piano providing a counterpoint to Mehr’s swirling atmospherics. The ambient chill of City Of Satellites is given an added gloss by Tim Manzano, although I’m not so sure what he’s actually done with the track – it does sound a lot like the City Of Satellites I know from their Machine Is My Animal album, although as the track progresses and the rhythm and bass begin to disintegrate into a dubby conclusion it seems more apparent where Manzano has left his mark. Arc Lab’s “Through The Burning Glass” is remixed by Glanko, beginning with a club-level bassline before levelling into a noir tinged synth epic. And just when you thought the tracks on Eat Your Friends were entirely instrumentals, Rew perform a cover version of Umpire’s “Green Light District” and they do it with a vocal, alongside the strings and crashing cymbals and haltingly uncertain rhythms, a highlight of an album each of whose tracks is in one or another way remarkable.”

  – DOA

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• Medard Fischer “Four Songs for the City of New York” Reviewed at Luna Kafe

  “More ambient gold from the fab Hidden Shoal label. Medard Fischer’s soothing and tranquilising EP, Four Songs for the City of New York. Yes, the EP holds four songs. Dive into it.

  Medard Fischer is a Canuck, being a Toronto native residing in Sydney, Australia via New York. Fischer – known for his solo work under the monikers Arc Lab and Tyyson (check out labels such as Duotone, Music Made By People or n5MD) – put last year out an EP (under his own name) called Four Songs For Peter Fechter (self-released). Who’s Peter Fecther, one might say (though you might have heard the name sometimes)? Peter Fechter was an eighteen year-old East German bricklayer who became one of the first (and youngest) fatalities along the Berlin Wall. Facts (by Hidden Shoal): ‘On August 17, 1962, Fechter and a friend ran the wall near Checkpoint Charlie in the Kreuzberg district of central Berlin. Fechter was shot in the pelvis by an East German border guard during his attempt to scale the wall and fell back into the “death-strip” on the eastern side. He lay in agony in full view of western onlookers, and of border guards on each side of the wall. Despite his pleas, he was refused medical attention, and western bystanders were prevented at gunpoint from assisting him. He died of blood loss approximately an hour later. The senselessness of his death and the refusal of both East and West German border guards to render him aid was a flashpoint for anger in Berlin over division of the city and construction of the wall and led to the eruption of spontaneous demonstrations in the city.’ A sad, horrendous story from a gruesome time. Well, the times they are not a-changing… However, this time Fischer hails New York City. His music is still of the low-key kind. The spirit of the music is still lamental – grievous and sorrowful, even though he pays homage to ‘a dynamic, incomparable city’.

  Fischer is a sensible, sensitive and careful musician and componist, creating impressionist, ambient electronic music merging classical music and ambient pop in his delicate musical stew. His tender songs is gentle carresses and probably quiet memories brought into sound. The four, piano driven tracks – “The Imaginary City”, “Five Years Almost To The Day”, “Monument” and “A Light That Doesn’t Go Out” – well, they all bring out, or expose a present foundness and longing for a city you’ve left. I guess there are love and hate shoulder to shoulder. All the tracks are pleasant compositions that glide through the air. They leave the speakers to fill the room around you. Not in a scaring, or disturbing way, but in a most comforting way. Fischer musical efforts are warm and friendly. These are welcoming, gratifying songs. Come on, let Four Songs for the City of New York delight you. You will not regret it. This is the soundtrack for Colibri birds when they’re sleeping.

  Four Songs for the City of New York EP will be released on 3rd of September 2015. Fischer can also be heard as half of Hidden Shoal’s electronic duo Down Review (alongside fellow Canuck Tim Arndt a.k.a. Near The Parenthesis).

  PS! Net proceeds of the Peter Fechter EP sales was and will be donated to the UN Refugee Agency. Respect. Go get that one as well!”

  – Luna Kafe

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• Medard Fischer “Four Songs for the City of New York” Reviewed at Hypnagogue

  “Whichever point in day you choose to listen to Medard Fischer’s Four Songs for the City of New York will simply be the most beautiful 18 minutes of your day. Moving neo-classical tinted with the soft light of ambient, these are graceful and gorgeous comments that, though brief, come through with strong, human resonance. This is one of those times when words won’t suffice. Fischer’s piano holds the lead on these songs, but it’s supported by an airy ensemble of sounds with a cinematic quality to them. The release opens with the delicate tones of “The Imaginary City,” said tones getting nearly drowned in a rising wash and distorted vocal drops. “Five Years Almost to the Day” comes in hesitant and perhaps a little sad, but brightens as it has its say. “Monument” has a soft, sequenced feel, a comforting pulse over long string pads. It ends a note that is held like a mix of longing and expectation. “A Light That Doesn’t Go Out” took hold of my heart from the moment I heard it. For reasons I cannot explain, of the four tracks this one comes off the most like a love note to the city. In my head I see a montage of shots of empty city streets, the canyons between Manhattan skyscrapers, just after dawn, the city only thinking of waking. It is sunlight on high windows, a sparkle on the Hudson, the city glimpsed through the railings of a bridge as you reluctantly leave.

  Enough from me. Get this. Listen. And listen again. Few things are this beautiful.”

  – Hypnagogue

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• “Long Range Transmissions” Reviewed at Tome To The Weather Machine

  “I am an unabashed Hidden Shoal fan. The Australian label has been pumping out releases of lush, cinematic aspirations of ambient and neo-classical artists for a better part of it’s existence that, at times, is overcome by its eclectic output ranging from conspiracy-punks to 90’s slowcore revivalists to every deriviation of weirdos (Australian and otherwise) in between. Long Distance Transmissions, however, is a surprisingly cohesive collection of sprawling ambient, electro-acoustic, post-classical and just about ever derivation (Australian and otherwise) of lushly produced, slightly melancholic, wordless music in between. Highlights include Markus Mehr’s Tim Hecker-meets-Heinz Riegler meditative distorted synth composition “Hubble, the chopped and glitched electro-acoustic number by Kryshe, the minor key minimalist techno of Cheekbone and the emotional heft of the 80’s nostalgia of Slow Dancing Society’s bubbling arpeggios and soundtrack-worthy dynamics. It makes sense that Hidden Shoal also exists as a licensing company, many of these compositions, if not already, seem to soundtrack some deeply resonant scenes in films (never made).”

  – Tome To The Weather Machine

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• “Long Range Transmissions” Hidden Shoal Compilation Album

  “Happened across this as we were turning it in for the night, a new name your price downloadable compilation by Australia’s finest purveyors of elegantly drawn dream pop Hidden Shoals. Entitled ‘long range transmissions’ it features a gathering of talents, some familiar – Antonymes, Markus Mehr, Slow Dancing Society et al along with some not so such as gilded and cheekbone. However what attracted us apart from the obvious as ever high quality seductive ambience tonalities literally peeling from the grooves was a delightful little thing from Elisa Luu entitled ‘chromatic sigh’. A breathlessly beautiful slice of porcelain noir classicism, an all too brief heavenly visitation, the slow shift into focus of the sound of a celestial calling emerging into the open to bathe all in the tingling shower of warming radiance, an out of body astral gliding odyssey which for a moment utterly transfixes its delicately balanced and perfectly poised gaze to fix and fill you with ethereal enchantment. And so to something familiar, regular visitors to these pages will be all too aware of our affection for Chloe March who here with ‘old tree, mon coeur’ doesn’t disappoint in the slightest and into the bargain offers up this sweetly mesmerising rustic ghost light, a fairy dust sprayed dream draped lost in the moment beguiling bouquet that shyly treads in the kind of amorphous star twinkled worlds of Musetta albeit as though aided and abetted by a soiree of siren sighs from a chill tripped Laetita and Mary from Stereolab.”

  – The Sunday Experience

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• “Lost In Transmissions” Compilation Reviewed at Wake The Deaf

  “You might recognise Hidden Shoal from our piece on Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs, the latest album from REW<<. The label has recently released Long Range Transmissions, the first in a series of themed compilations which showcase the ambient/neo-classical acts in their catalogue. It’s the perfect place to introduce yourself to a diverse and interesting collective of musicians.

  While the collection comes from a particular genre, there is still room for much variation across the thirteen tracks. Antonymes and Kryshe favour fragile, graceful piano, Cheekbone push a sci-fi inspired electronica and Chloe March creates a lush chamber pop. Todd Tobias evokes a mixture of shimmering bliss and nostalgia, his track ‘Nan Madol’ playing like a super-cinematic missing number from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, while Stockholm’s Erik Nilsson’s gently tropical ‘Drawing/Dreaming’ feels like watching the sun set into the sea on the last night of your holiday. Other highlights include the goosebump-inducing melodrama of Slow Dancing Society’s ‘Pull’, Elisa Luu’s ethereal ‘Chromatic Sigh’ and the aching melancholy of closing track ‘Empty Cradles’ by Sleeping Me.”

  – Wake The Deaf

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• Medard Fischer “Four Songs For The City of New York” Reviewed at EtherReal

  [Translated from the original French via Google Translate]

  “Developing electronic projects under a pseudonym and keep its own name neoclassical proposals: the schema is known and other musicians have been able to do so. It is the turn of Medard Fischer to do this: follow these pages for his records, appeared on n5MD under the name of Arc Lab or on Review Down duo, Canadian stays true to Hidden Shoal Recordings (Australian label hosting, specifically, his duet publications) for this event.

  Second of its kind (a first digital EP had previously been self-produced), this Four Songs For The City Of New York could simply align graceful piano notes, without further ambition, and it’s a little fear Like to listen to the first minute of the opening track. Fortunately, an electronic table enriches the atmosphere of The Imaginary City. Thereafter, if it is a quasi-stripped piano we find with this eternal aspect of contemplative and slightly elegiac, on the writ Almost Five Years To The Day, the last two tracks are sailing towards more ambient shores and more convincing.

  Monument with his swing, as tapped, especially A Light That Does not Go Out (a priori nothing to do with the piece of The Smiths), seven minutes long, is more ambitious tendencies receptacle. In fact, there converse few piano keys and a light texture, all bathed in a delicate melancholy and certainly constitutes the strong point of this EP.”

  – EtherReal

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Press Releases

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Artist Photos

Music Videos

Licensing

Medard Fischer’s music is  available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.