One of Counterflows main aims is to bring together artists that haven’t worked together to create something new from their collective experience and practice. The prospect of these three wonderful and different explorers in the art of sound coming together for Counterflows is really exciting. All three use electro acoustic synthisised sound to create worlds of ephemeral beauty. Be it with analogue synthesizers field recordings or home-made instruments, the experience will be a new and arresting music world.

Luke Fowler is an artist based in Glasgow working at the threshold of film and sound. His films are informed by research into radical figures such as psychiatrist RD Laing, composer Cornelius Cardew and historian E.P. Thompson. Fowler collaborates with a wide range of musicians including Richard Youngs, Toshiya Tsunoda, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Alasdair Roberts, David Toop, Sylvia Hallet, Stevie Jones and Cara Tolmie. Since 2010 he has been playing the Serge Analogue Modular Synthesiser which he combines with self-made instruments.
Mika Vainio, currently based in Berlin, was one half of the minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic from Finland, (the other half was Ilpo Väisänen).

Before starting Pan Sonic in the beginning of the 90′s, Mika Vainio has played electronics and drums as part of the early Finnish industrial and noise scene in the 80′s. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their analogue warmth and roughness. Be it abstract drone works or minimal avant techno, Vainio is always creating unique, physical sounds. He has collaborated with among others with Alan Vega of Suicide, Keiji Haino, Chicks on Speed, John Duncan, Bruce Gilbert and Stephen O’Malley. Since 2009 Mika Vainio is contributing the music to Cindy van Acker’s dance pieces.

Working with amplification as both a form of manipulation and a mode of enquiry, Lee Patterson has devised a range of objects and processes that produce complex sound in simple ways. Through the manipulation and activation of these amplified objects, devices and processes, Patterson explores the sonic potential of his unique instrumentation. From effervescent salts to amplified springs, dry rock chalk to burning nuts, he opens up and plays the usually inaudible, microscopic sounds emitted by otherwise mute devices and objects.