Short bio
Marcus Fischer (b.1977) is a musician & multimedia artist currently based in Portland, Oregon. With early beginnings in the LA independent music scene, Fischer moved from there to Olympia, Washington where in addition to drumming in various bands he found new opportunities to further experiment with sound, using tape loops and electronics. The journey led next to Portland, Oregon, where he continues to refine his experimentations. Field recordings, chance, and DIY instruments, coupled with acoustic instrumentation and visual art, define what has become Marcus’s minimal signature. Fischer is also the co-curator of SIX, an annual six-speaker surround sound performance series, and has had the opportunity to score various short films and multimedia performances. In recent years he has also been involved with projects and performances for Art organizations such as the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, SASSAS, C.o.G. and DubLab.
Throughout 2009, Marcus kept a “thing-a-day” blog, a self-inflicted experiment in time and productivity where Fischer tasked himself with completing one creative project a day for one year and documenting it daily on dustbreeding.com. The projects took many forms: photography, video, music, sound experiments, printmaking, graphic design and diy electronics. The blog project allowed him to grow creatively by the constant momentum created through daily expression.
In November 2010, Marcus Fischer's debut full-length album, Monocoastal, was released by the prestigious 12k label. Monocoastal was inspired by Fischer’s movements up and down the West Coast of America over the last two decades. Washes of tape hiss play homage to the Pacific Ocean, while multiple layers of details reveal themselves differently upon each listen. Tiny sounds originate from field recordings and are given the same attention as conventional instrumentation. Found instruments--such as a piano discovered in the corner of a salvage warehouse and a xylophone made of metal wrenches--create sounds captured through both analog and digital recording. Detail is removed rather than added, and harmonic tones are discovered in natural resonances. The compositions on Monocoastal are built upon a bed of low fidelity textures, an exercise in restraint and tension. Space between notes plays an important compositional role to create this balance and tape loops provide organic repetition that wavers subtly with warmth and imperfection. There is a fractured and naturally worn sense to Fischer’s compositions, each one an object itself summed from carefully selected instruments and tones used in their making. Much like Fischer’s creative blog DustBreeding, Monocoastal finds beauty in everyday objects and surroundings and portrays a hazy, personal narrative.
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