Music Producer Fis Experiments With Saplings
Experimental producer New Zealander Fis, aka Oliver Peryman, has been challenging the restrictive structures of drum & bass since 2011, channelling the genre’s gut-churning low-end and collapsing rhythms into bizarre and brilliant new spaces. But this year he announced something even more unexpected – a record label that instead of selling vinyl or cassettes, plants trees.
John Twells, managing editor at UK music website FACT, catches up with the Berlin-based artist to find out the motivation behind an inspiring project.
Peryman’s new record label, Saplings, will not produce vinyl or cassettes or CDs or USB sticks and it won’t make t-shirts or zines or posters. The label’s physical format is the planting of trees: with each album sale, at least 100 trees will be planted; 10 albums sold creates a forest of 1000 trees. “Are there more trees in the ground or not because of us,” Peryman says. “It’s either yes or no, and I’d rather it’s yes.”
It sounds simple because it is. Peryman is addressing something observable – climate change and habitat loss – by doing something practical and tangible. Assisting him with the mammoth task is The Eden Projects, a nonprofit organisation that plants millions of trees each year on the behalf of its network of donors. The idea is that by recreating forests, the project will not only help in the struggle against climate change but offer employment, empower communities and restore hope.
“Hope belongs everywhere,” Peryman assures. “That’s just a really simple way of putting it for me. There’s no situation where hope is inappropriate.”
The concept of conservation is very dear to the producer. His brother, Bailey Peryman, runs a network of urban farms in Christchurch city and the producer has been involved as much as he can. “They bring in young people who need to do something different and could do with some relationships with older people that are supportive as well,” he explains. “They pay them, it’s work experience and they just talk and work. But the whole idea was just – is this going to concretely in a real actual way, going to move the city towards a more ecologically viable situation.”
Original article by John Twells, FACT, November 16, 2017.
