Elvin Brandhi (born Freya Edmondes) is an improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist, originally from Bridgend in Wales, but a citizen of the world, moving between Vienna and Kampala, Berlin, Cairo, Dakkar, Marseille and Newcastle. She had a childhood immersed in music every day, and studied painting and drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Her sound production develops on distorted bases that act as an unstable platform on which she sings and performs her improvised stream of consciousness lyrical trips. Deep furious or nonsense, her spoken word lies on explosive and aberrant beats from field recordings, tape, vinyl, instrument and voice.
Since 2013 she has played and collaborated with many improvisers including Rhodri Davies,
Eugene Chadbourne, Michael Fischer, Gustav Thomas, Greta Buitiké, THF Drenching, Alan Wilkinson, Ventil, WIDT, the former Jungle Brothers MC Sensational, Tony Allen,
Pat Thomas and with the Ugandan collective Nyege Nyege. At each stop of her nomadic journey she collaborates with local artists. She has participated in international festivals including CTM (Berlin), Borealis (Bergen), Donaufestival (Krems), Kraak Festival (Brussels), Umlaut festival (Paris), Total Inertia (Leeds), TUSK (Newcastle), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam) , Counterflows (Glasgow). Among her stable collaborations are the low-fi noise pop duo Yeah You with her father Gustav Thomas, the interdisciplinary duo BAHK with Daniel Blumberg, the INSIN duo with Bashar Suleiman, the project Avril Spleen with Joseph Jadame, the duo Pollution Opera with Nadah El Shazly, and Bad@Maths.
In 2017 she was awarded the PRS Oram Award for Innovative Musicians, with a production commission at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She was also part of SHAPE platform 2020.
