ILYICH

ILYICH is a multi-instrumentalist musician, sound artist, and educator from Kherson, Ukraine. Working across sound, performance, and artistic research, ILYICH creates immersive sonic and visual worlds rooted in jazz, improvisation, electronic music, and storytelling. Their practice bridges studio releases and live performance with installations, films, theatre, radio works, and pedagogical interventions. Claiming asylum in Germany in 2000, they began performing under the middle name ILYICH, a name erased during the asylum process. They have collaborated with artists such as Twin Shadow, Takuya Nakamura, Cheap Collective, Floyd Lavine, Ukrainian jazz musicians Valery Volkov and Andrii Barmalii, and experimental performers like Ligia Lewis and Corey Scott-Gilbert. Their work blends sonic experimentation with embodied and critical inquiry. ILYICH’s projects have been presented at documenta14, Sonic Acts, SAVVY Contemporary, Sophiensæle, Serpentine Galleries, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Their music has been featured on BBC 6 Music, Lot Radio, and Refuge Worldwide, where ILYICH hosts the Listening Hymns series. As founder of the nomadic music ensemble and artist residency Grounded Outer Space People, ILYICH’s work moves between the tangible and the imaginary, sounding out worlds otherwise. “ILYICH … addresses themes of community and resistance through music … capable of both … a worthwhile listen.” — The Wire (UK) Anton ILYICH Kats is Associate Professor for Sonic and Listening Practices at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.