Black heavy cotton Gildan T-shirts with white front and back print, as part of Jacob Stoy's Album "Overload".

Overload is a long-running and crucial project in the Berlin musician and graphic designer's artistic output. What began as a multi-dimensional art project about the over-presence of stimuli hammering our consciousness in the days of late capitalism evolved into a fascinating musical field study into the deep canyons of future IDM, lo-fi wave, freakfolk and everything in between.

The album is a piece of conceptual art that uses sound and music to reflect on the modern information society and our relationship to digital content. Lost in the endless stream of sensations, we are not only plagued by fears of missing out on relevant information, but also increasingly by addictive behavior in the form of a permanent longing for content. Despite the constant oversupply, these relationships lead to loneliness, social isolation and the inability to make decisions.

Almost inevitably, the musical spectrum on OVERLOAD is extraordinarily broad, ranging from state-of-the-art IDM to lo-fi wave sketches, hip-hop stumblings and freakfolk miniatures through to twisted ambient. Nevertheless, it is surprisingly cohesive and works well as a cure for digital overload in a kind of conceptual irony. It is an album that will inevitably cast a spell over listeners.

But Jacob Stoy's album is by no means the end of the OVERLOAD concept. The ideas are being continued on the project's website and in various artistic contributions. Jacob Stoy has asked many friends how they would translate their thoughts on the subject into individual works of art. Many exhibits have already been submitted, with many more to come. The project will ultimately culminate in a concept exhibition that brings together all the contributions and creates a dialog between them.

What is music without movement? What is dance without music? How does music get transformed into movement? How does movement get transformed into sound.

The project Erste Übersetzung / First Translation takes a look at how music gets translated into movement and at the same time it asks how movement generates new sounds and rhythms. With the help of Johanna Lemke-Strauss, Jacob Stoy explores the sound of dance without visuality.

Johanna Strauss-Lemke is a dancer and choreographer from Berlin. She works with a variety of theatres and directors from all over the world. Jacob Stoy is a visual and audio artist from Berlin who works with different artists on concepts, books, websites, music and plays. In 2015, the two met at Dock 11 in Berlin, where they participated in a performance. Ever since they have been making music under the name Room Service and creating performances as Team Volume.

One side of the 7-inch record contains an improvised track by Jacob. He recorded the track, with the help of synthesizers, drum machines and a looper pedal, on a 4-track tape deck. Through his instruments Jacob searches for the soundtracks of spaces and moments in his imagination. The other side of the vinyl consists of a recording of Johanna dancing while she listens to Jacob's track with headphones. She transforms what she hears into images, and her movements transport these images into a three-dimensional room.

Dance actually is a visual discipline that cooperates with the human body as well as the environments of spaces, but sound also is a rather important aspect that goes hand in hand with the visual side of dance. This record thus explores how sound can create imagery without visuality.

Isolation, hope, paranoia, trust, help, rethink, wait – „ISO“ is a mini album consisting of 7 jams recorded on a 4 track cassette recorder.
All tracks written and performed by Jacob Stoy, between march 18 and 22, 2020. Gear: MPC 1000, CZ 5000, DX 7, Polysix, X0X, MS 20, M1, EH 45000, iPad (Borderlands, Garageband, Model 15, Model d), Portastudio 424.