Music
Press
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14214738
NPR.org, September 6, 2007 - Kristofir is a performance artist who mixes paintings and installation works with his playfully experimental musical compositions. Classically trained in oboe and piano performance, Kristofir mixes synths with organs, harpsichord, lyre and percussion to make what he calls "new wave, Aesopian" songs. His songs also include an audio collage of sampled sounds like streetcars turning corners, dripping sewers and seagulls.
A native of Toronto, Canada, Kristofir says he used to be a moth and thinks he still is because he really likes bright things. He says his quirky new CD, Knittings, is a collection of musical fables that "document the domestic life of bees, horses making cheese in the back garden, meeting eccentric new friends while waiting in line at the bank, the magic of peppermint, and the struggles between nature and humans."
- NPR
Discography
Streaming music online:
http://www.myspace.com/speakingofkristofir
http://radio3.cbc.ca/bands/kristofir/
Photos
Bio
Kristofir brings forth his classical training in oboe and piano performance in his quirky, often abstract songs. Electronic music fuses with organic sampled sources, such as dripping sewers, streetcars turning corners, seagulls screeching, and ambient traffic. Synthesizers, organs, harpsichord, lyre, oboe and manipulated percussion round out his new wave, Aesopian compositions.
His music intersects with his visual art where sound is interpreted as colourful paintings and installations. Both elements - sound and visuals - are equally important in Kristofir's work. He is inspired by Laurie Anderson and Stravinsky - both of whom have connected their music with visuals to enhance the dimensions of their artistic visions. And, like those artists, there is a playfulness to Kristofir's work that would be appeal to those who enjoy the music of Ennio Morricone, Psapp or Cibo Matto, for example.
But Kristofir is very much in his own world where music meets colour, awkward situations compete with unrestrained eccentricity, and the horrors of our world are overrun by dreamlike wonderment. His musical fables thrive on things that make people uncomfortable - euthanizing pets, environmental destruction, and abandoning cultural expectations - subversively framing them in sounds that range from the dark and ominous to light-hearted children's party music.
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