The Body & Dis Fig announce collaborative record, Orchards of a Futile Heaven, out on February 23rd via Thrill Jockey

The Body & Dis Fig have just announced their debut collaborative record, Orchards of a Futile Heaven, which is set to be released next February. Along with the record announcement, The Body & Dis Fig have shared the first single “Holy Lance”, a triumphant anthem, which finds The Body guitarist Chip King’s guitar meet the uncanny drone of Dis Fig’s, accordion in an all-consuming blast, Dis Fig’s voice transforming the moment from anguish to defiance and empowerment – you can listen to the single below this article.

The Body & Dis Fig are a natural pair. Each has pioneered instantly recognisable worlds of sound all their own that defy any traditional categorisations or boundaries. The Body’s Lee Buford and Chip King, continually challenge any conventional conception of metal, collaborating with myriad artists and from the folk-leanings of their work with BIG|BRAVE to their groundbreaking work with the Assembly of Light Choir and the intensity of their collaborations with OAA or Thou. Dis Fig, aka Felicia Chen, pushes electronic music into dark extremes, from warped DJ sets to avant production, from being a member of Tianzhuo Chen’s performance-art series TRANCE to being the vocalist with The Bug. The Body and Dis Fig find kinship in reimagining what it means to make “heavy music”. Their debut, Orchards of a Futile Heaven is the perfect synthesis of two forces, twisting melodicism and intoxicating rhythms, layering a dense miasma of distortion with intense beats and a soaring voice clawing its way towards absolution.

While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.” Chen counters, “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human’s voice.”

Orchards of a Futile Heaven will be released on February 23rd via Thrill Jockey. Pre-orders are now available here.