Filastine

Filastine is the performance name of Grey Filastine, a Barcelona-based composer and video artist from the United States. The act is associated with Los Angeles and Barcelona, and also works as the multimedia duo Filastine & Nova.

Music and approach

Filastine’s work combines electronic beat production with voice, musique concrète, analogue synthesizers and strings. The project sits across dubstep, broken world beats, experimental music, ethnocore and hip-hop, and is described through a wide range of sound and image-based performance. The music also draws on psychedelic trap, tropical post-folk and punk elements in later work.

Early work and influences

Before recording under the Filastine name, Grey Filastine works as a taxi driver in the United States and studies percussion with Brazilian batucadas and with musical traditions in Morocco. In 1999 he founds the Infernal Noise Brigade, a marching band that provides a live soundtrack for the Seattle WTO revolt and later globalisation protests.

Recordings and collaborations

DJ/Rupture releases Filastine’s first album, Burn It!, in 2006. Over the following years, Filastine releases a run of critically noted albums and tours internationally. A major change comes when Filastine meets vocalist Nova Ruth in Jakarta. Nova performs with Indonesia’s rap group Twin Sista, and brings her own background in Pentecostal spirituals, Quran recitation and Javanese gamelan percussion. She also builds networks among Southeast Asia’s video activists and hackers.

Filastine & Nova

Filastine & Nova work as a multimedia duo focused on borders, movement and political themes. Their performances combine music, video, design and dance. They create an official mixtape for The Act of Killing, perform a sound swarm at the Paris Climate Summit, and present work in the Calais Jungle migrant camp. Their project Abandon is a video series about dances of emancipation from work, filmed in places including coal mines in Borneo and office cubicles in America.

Later projects and live performance

The duo’s album Drapetomania gathers songs from Abandon and other new material. Their live shows are central to the project and use sound, image and ideas together, often with guest dancers and multi-screen visuals.

Tours and festivals

Filastine & Nova tour across five continents and appear at festivals including Sonar in Spain, Downtown Cairo Arts in Egypt, Decibel in the United States, Les Vieilles Charrues in France, Foreign Affairs in Germany and Mona Foma in Australia.

Other names

The name Filastine also appears alongside ¡TchKung! and Sonar Calibrado.