Elvin Brandhi

Freya Edmondes is an improvising lyricist and beat producer working under the name Elvin Brandhi. Currently based between Berlin and Vienna where she studied at the Fine Art’s Academy, and is involved in performance groups that made public interventions, organising performances on construction sites and disused basements.

Since 2013 she has performed and collaborated with many improvisors 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 and Pat Thomas. She has participated in various festivals including Borealis Festival, Bergen, Norway, Kraak Festival, Brussels, Total Inertia Festival, Leeds, TUSK Festival, Newcastle, Sonic Acts festival, Amsterdam, Counterflows, Glasgow and Guelph Jazz Festival and Colloquium (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) where she gave presented a paper on dismantling the frameworks and protocols of improvised music (‘Creative Agency, Quotidian Routines & Situated Performance as Critical Praxis’).

In 2017 she was given a PRS Oram Award for Innovative Female Musicians; part of the award includes a commission to produce new work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and participated as a fellow of Raw academy, Senegal’s third session: ‘The five elements: Hip-hop Aesthetics and Politics ’ co-ordinated by the journalist-rappers ‘Journal Rappé’ where she collaborated with the political art movement ‘Y’en a Marre’ and the Artist collective ‘Nous entre Nous: Espace Médina’.