Forgotten Futures’ Artist Residency aspires to increase equity and disrupt institutional racism by providing access and resources to people of color and LGBTQ+ populations who have been historically disenfranchised by the recording industry. Figure 8 Recording co-sponsors and facilitates the program out of their studios in Brooklyn, NY.

The Residency will curate a cohort of artists, each of whom will be granted studio time at Figure 8 Recording to record and/or mix a music project. The Artists will take advantage of Figure 8’s unique blend of analog and digital studio equipment, and will be invited to experiment and record with the library of rare and unique electronic musical instruments from the Forgotten Futures collection.

This Residency is a 12-month program during which Artists receive a $10,000 fee, three weeks of time in Figure 8’s Brooklyn studio, and access to Forgotten Futures’ collection of over 100 fully restored early electronic musical instruments.

The Residency does not have specific compositional outcomes or public performance requirements; it will be flexible in offerings of time, space, and equipment because we believe that the Artists we are trying to support should be free to define those outcomes themselves.

The Residency’s inaugural Artist, Holland Andrews, was chosen through a curatorial process led by Figure 8’s director Shahzad Ismaily alongside Forgotten Futures founder Wally De Backer. Future Artists in Residence will be chosen in collaboration with previous Residents, with the goal of inviting the artists themselves into the ongoing curatorial process.

Holland Andrews (they/them) is an American vocalist, composer, and performance artist whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and dissonance. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing, Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics. Andrews harnesses these instruments’ innate qualities of power and elegance to serve as a cohesive vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range including contemporary opera, theater, and jazz, while also cultivating their own unique vocal style which integrates these influences with language disintegration and vocal distortion. Andrews previously performed solo music under the stage name Like a Villain.

In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and their work is still toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls, and poet Demian Dinéyazhi. Notable musical collaborations have been with composers and artists such as Son Lux, Christina Vantzou, William Brittelle, Peter Broderick. They are one of the first artists releasing on the label Leiter, a Berlin-based record label spearheaded by composer, Nils Frahm. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Electronic Sound, Uncut Magazine, Le Monde, and BBC Radio. Holland Andrews is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.

Shahzad Ismaily (Co-Residency Director)
Shahzad Ismaily was born in the States to Pakistani parents who emigrated here just before his birth. He grew up in a bicultural household, always following a multitude of paths and perusals. He is mostly self-taught as a musician, composer, recording engineer, and producer. He primarily plays electric bass, drums, percussion, guitar, synthesizers, and all manner of sound-makers procured in life’s travels. He has recorded and performed with a diverse crew of artMakers including Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Beth Orton, Colin Stetson, Ben Frost, Bonnie Prince Billy, Damien Rice, Jolie Holland, JFDR, Secret Chiefs 3, Sam Amidon, further and further. He has been an integral member of festival/residency/collective experiences such as the People Festival (the brainchild of Bon Iver, The National, and the Michelberger), the Eau Claires festival, and the Moers Festival. He has done work for dance and theater pieces, such as the film Frozen River (Oscar-nominated and Sundance award-winning), Inkboat (a butoh crew from California/Switzerland), and visual artist Laleh Khorramian. Currently based in Brooklyn and working out of the recording studio collective he founded and created, Figure 8 Recording, he has studied music extensively in Pakistan, India, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco, and Iceland.