Abigail Toll

Bio

Live

Abigail Toll is an English experimental music artist based
in Berlin, who has also performed under the moniker
Ionian Death Robes.

Her multidimensional soundscapes combine electronic
and acoustic instruments, primarily flutes, that oscillate
between heavy washes of drone, aural entanglements
and psychoacoustic sensations. She draws on sonification
and deep listening techniques in order to make sense
of the world, often in collaboration with musicians,

interdisciplinary artists and writers.

Her upcoming debut record is a 30-minute ensemble
piece called 'Matrices of Vision' which will be released
on Shelter Press.

The composition is based on a sonic deconstruction
of a dataset compiled by an influential Swedish
government authority which she produced for her
Masters in Electroacoustic composition at the
KMH in Stockholm.

For the artistic research, Toll took inspiration from her
collaborator Indigenous cyberfeminist Tiara Roxanne's
work on data colonialism and transformed the notion of
"matrice" from mathematical to code to music theory.
In Roxanne’s words, the piece translates “forms of refusal
via composition, tuning, sonic intensity and the musical
narrative... that unsettles hierarchy while holding space
for the listener.”

The release concert this summer will feature musicians
Lucy Railton, Rebecca Lane, and Evelyn Saylor, and will
be hosted by KW Institute for Contemporary Art’s Pogo
Bar series at the Klosterruine in Berlin. The performance
will feature a spoken word introduction by Tiara Roxanne.

Contact: abigail.j.toll(at)gmail.com