Booking Enquiries: isntses@gmail.com
Audio/Visual Collaboration
Isn'tses is a collaboration between visual/electronic artist and musician Lisa McKendrick and animator and electronic artist Tim Drage. The duo perform wearing costumes and masks in conjunction with live video synth projections and illuminated props. They deliver a spontaneous and improvised performance using theatrical style interaction using beats, live sequencing and samples, field recordings, self-built synths, noise boxes, and vocals. Their music conjures themes such as paganism, freedom of speech, freedom of sound, intergalactic heroism and a playful interpretation of popular culture.
In addition to their personal DIY instruments they have designed and manufactured two psychogeographic synthesiser circuits: the Fort Processor, a touch and light controlled instrument and effects unit, and the Chernobylizer, a touch and power-starve controlled noise synth which won Award of Merit at Maker Music Festival 2021.
Isn’tses in Action :
“you can’t replicate that signature sound you have....so dense and full of detail and movement....a different use of space...really tight and immediate and close”
- Bermuda Triangle Test Transmissions, Resonance FM
Isn’tses have performed recently at Mayhem Night, Electropixel Festival 2022, Raw Power 2021, Renaissance Alternative Music Festival 2022, Baba Yaga's Hut, DISSOLVING BOUNDARIES, Sonic Electronics Festival 2019, Hackoustic Presents, coding in GE> 2018, Fort Process 2018, Baba Yaga's Hut New Years EEE Party, Liminality (Cacophony, Gallery 46), No Format Gallery, Festival Bergerie #3, France, Modern Panic VIII, Dronica, Woodland Gathering, Bunker Theatre, SOTU Festival Amsterdam.
They played live on Resonance FM (Bad Punk, The Wrong Show, Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission), Cashmere Radio Berlin and were played on Graham Dunning’s NTS Radio show “Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone” Isn'tses have released recordings as hand-crafted cassette editions including “Punctum” and “Ultimate Problem of Documentation”. They were featured in catalogue and cd compilation for 3 Years of Dronica and artist compilation for Sonic Electronics Festival.
"London-based duo of Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage, have a wicked sense of humour and a unique visual aesthetic, dressing in bespoke sequinned costumes which make them look like displaced grapplers from an obscure Japanese indy wrestling division. Mere eye candy they ain’t, mind: Punctum, their third self-released cassette, is an epic 90 minutes of obscurely crafted analogue machine gurgle – “an album of mysterious origin”, the sole description on the Bandcamp page, may not specifically refer to its methodology but certainly could." - Noel Gardner, The Quietus
Contact: isntses@gmail.com
Instagram @chernobylizersynth
Isn'tses is a collaboration between visual/electronic artist and musician Lisa McKendrick and animator and electronic artist Tim Drage. The duo perform wearing costumes and masks in conjunction with live video synth projections and illuminated props. They deliver a spontaneous and improvised performance using theatrical style interaction using beats, live sequencing and samples, field recordings, self-built synths, noise boxes, and vocals. Their music conjures themes such as paganism, freedom of speech, freedom of sound, intergalactic heroism and a playful interpretation of popular culture.
In addition to their personal DIY instruments they have designed and manufactured two psychogeographic synthesiser circuits: the Fort Processor, a touch and light controlled instrument and effects unit, and the Chernobylizer, a touch and power-starve controlled noise synth which won Award of Merit at Maker Music Festival 2021.
Isn’tses in Action :
“you can’t replicate that signature sound you have....so dense and full of detail and movement....a different use of space...really tight and immediate and close”
- Bermuda Triangle Test Transmissions, Resonance FM
Isn’tses have performed recently at Mayhem Night, Electropixel Festival 2022, Raw Power 2021, Renaissance Alternative Music Festival 2022, Baba Yaga's Hut, DISSOLVING BOUNDARIES, Sonic Electronics Festival 2019, Hackoustic Presents, coding in GE> 2018, Fort Process 2018, Baba Yaga's Hut New Years EEE Party, Liminality (Cacophony, Gallery 46), No Format Gallery, Festival Bergerie #3, France, Modern Panic VIII, Dronica, Woodland Gathering, Bunker Theatre, SOTU Festival Amsterdam.
They played live on Resonance FM (Bad Punk, The Wrong Show, Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission), Cashmere Radio Berlin and were played on Graham Dunning’s NTS Radio show “Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone” Isn'tses have released recordings as hand-crafted cassette editions including “Punctum” and “Ultimate Problem of Documentation”. They were featured in catalogue and cd compilation for 3 Years of Dronica and artist compilation for Sonic Electronics Festival.
"London-based duo of Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage, have a wicked sense of humour and a unique visual aesthetic, dressing in bespoke sequinned costumes which make them look like displaced grapplers from an obscure Japanese indy wrestling division. Mere eye candy they ain’t, mind: Punctum, their third self-released cassette, is an epic 90 minutes of obscurely crafted analogue machine gurgle – “an album of mysterious origin”, the sole description on the Bandcamp page, may not specifically refer to its methodology but certainly could." - Noel Gardner, The Quietus
Contact: isntses@gmail.com
Instagram @chernobylizersynth
