Madelyn Byrd (they/them) is a Berlin-based musician, researcher and curator. Fostering dialogues between humans, non-humans, and new technologies, Madelyn’s overarching research integrates possiblia’s emotional and theoretical nodes to pregure unconventional ways of being. In an evolving eort to map speculative sensorial and perceptive realms, their intrinsically collaborative practice employs a collaborative multidisciplinarity, concretising as albums, mixes, audiovisual works, collage, poetry, and social-praxis research. Each material play space is a microcosmic entry point into a watery world of sentimentality and grief, urgently beckoning post-anthropocentric healing and social transformation. Madelyn holds a master’s in Neuroaesthetics from Goldsmiths, where they researched the impact of collaborative imagination on measures of connection and hope in social praxis art.
Slowfoam is Madelyn’s all-encompassing sound project they produce, DJ, and perform under. As a world-building project, it is a space for them to trace the peripheries of ecology and technology, presence and possibility, and more-than-human connectedness. Drones, glitched-out textures, eld recordings, obfuscated words, glossy sound design, o-kilter polyrhythms, electro-acoustics, and sparkling ephemera are a tapestry of artifacts from a genre-defying paraworld. Slowfoam carefully crafts these aural environments to plunge listeners into paradoxical pools of deep meaning and obscurity, bubbling with transformative potential and the magic of the in-between.
Slowfoam is a former resident at Internet Public Radio, where they curated their monthly show, Our Tomorrow. They have released music on labels around the globe, including Jungle Gym Records (Los Angeles, USA), Lillerne Tapes (Chicago, USA), and Mappa (Lučenec, Slovakia), yielding features on Bandcamp, Electronic Sound Mag, Pitchfork, Boomkat, DJ Mag, The Wire Magazine, and Futurism Restated. They are currently represented by Somewhere Press (Glasgow, SL) with whom they released Transcorporeal Portal, their critically acclaimed debut LP, in March 2024.
Photo credit © Abby Beatrice Quick / Somewhere Press
Website: abbybeatricequick.com