Dis Fig – Queen City Sounds and Art

Dis Fig’s “The Snake You Built” is a Processional, Ritualistic Fusion of the Organic and Electronic

“The Snake You Built” creeps in with distorted drones and processed strings with the hint of vocals in the beginning. It’s like the opening sequence of an existential, cosmic science fiction horror film and when the drums join the mix of sounds the song takes on the character of a slow, ritual procession. But it’s a slow build until into the three minute mark when distorted motes burst forth and Felicia Chen’s vocals are more beckoning and intense expressing what sounds like an appeal to the universe for justice, for relief from oppression and for transcendence. Chen has collaborated with the heaviest of bands (for example The Body whose Lee Buford contributes to this track) and other experimental artists like Diana Miron (who also collaborated on the song) and this feels like a true fusion of the organic and the electronic. Fans of Jenny Hval and the more recent Jarboe solo albums will find great resonance here. Listen to “The Snake You Built” on YouTube and follow Dis Fig at the links below. The new album What To Make Of These Mortal Hands is out October 23, 2026 via Thrill Jockey Records on vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming.

Dis Fig on Instagram

Dis Fig’s Mix of Ancient and Industrial Sounds on “Psaltery” Generates a Great Sense of Discomfort and Catharsis

Dis Fig centers a sound like hammered dulcimer but is In fact a plucked zither that gives the title on “Psaltery.” In the beginning we hear that sound alongside textural sounds flowing in the background. Then her vocals come in also tracing the emotional edges of the song and building a framework within which the emotional weight of the song can expand. Felicia Chen’s voice nearly cracks with the force of feeling as the song progresses and the sounds of organic percussion in wood and metal join what feels like a ritual procession of sound. Soon enough low end bursts seem to dominate the space preparing us for Chen’s caterwaul and cascade of cathartic release in relentless shocks of vocal outpouring. The song combines the ancient with the modern but to evoke primal feelings that link vast periods of human history and experience and shakes the listener out of any state of comfort in a time when when comfort can be a luxury. Listen to “Psaltery” on Spotify and follow Dis Fig on Instagram. The album What To Make Of These Mortal Hands releases October 23, 2026 via Thrill Jockey Records for digital download, LP and streaming.

The Body and Cel Genesis Alchemize an Urgent Industrial Doom on “Candy Crush”

The Body and Cel Genesis, photo by Chris Danko

In its tradition of unique collaborations, experimental heavy duo The Body teams up with Oakland’s Cel Genesis for Whole Wide World (out November 13, 2026 via Thrill Jockey). Lead track “Candy Crush” doesn’t sound like an alternative soundtrack to the video game so much as a haunted, menacing environment of texture, pointillist simmering sounds in the dark with The Body’s Chip King’s high pitched, alien wail in the beginning before the song engages into a sustained eruption of industrial beats and seething distortion through which King and Cal Genesis’ Pauline Poreroso with her feral and urgent vocals seem to call and response through torrents of sound and into a period of the song that sounds like an evacuation alarm pulses. It comes off like an especially intense and heavy digital hardcore song that fans of Realicide and Machine Girl would appreciate if not already great appreciators of how The Body seems to be able to adapt their sonic imagination to every one of its many collaborative albums and songs. The true fusion of classic The Body’s industrialized doom and a more electronic aesthetic one saw not so long ago in their album with Dis Fig (Orchards of a Futile Heaven, 2024) but this is as inspired as that and a challenge to The Body to expand into territory is hadn’t been previously in working with Cel Genesis. Listen to “Candy Crush” on Spotify and follow The Body on Instagram.

Dis Fig’s Cathartic and Dark, Organic Industrial Track “The Account” Evokes the Ambient Heaviness of the Current Era

“The Account” is the debut track from Dis Fig’s forthcoming album What To Make Of These Mortal Hands (out October 23 via Thrill Jockey on vinyl, digital download and streaming). It brings us in with minimal, organic industrial beats at times like the sound of a knock on the door of a forgotten industrial sector of town. Then the wind between aka Eldon Somers comes in with a poetic statement/manifesto about a struggle for an authentic life where one’s capacity for vulnerability, basic humanity and simply feeling alive and not simply surviving is assaulted regularly by the machinations of a dysfunctional society. And how one must cultivate those capacities for inherent goodness and virtue against attempts at eroding them because what is life without them? Dis Fig aka Felicia Chen comes in with vocals echoing in the darkness of the song’s underground midnight mood before progressing into impassioned declarations of being weary of cycles of destruction. The beats hit hard in accenting the emotional weight of the words and the expert flourishes of sound design lend the track the feel of a lived experience because we’ve all lived through and are living through a time of corrosive social and economic forces pressing down on all and everything. Listen to “The Account” on Spotify and follow Dis Fig on Instagram.

Dis Fig on Instagram