Mutable Body constructs hyper-real soundscapes from synthesized and sampled sources, orchestrating worlds at once familiar and alien. It is the solo project of Winnipeg, MB based composer and artist Alison Hain (she/they).
Building on over a decade of electroacoustic improvisation, performance, and experimental composition, Mutable Body's current work distills genre-agnostic compositional forms into imagined scores for the minds eye and the stage. Their latest work, a full length album titled Night Between Worlds, merges glitched braindance rhythms, prog rock, highly curated samples, and orchestral instrumentation into diverse and highly stimulating soundscapes. This work also serves as a soundtrack to an as yet unreleased sci-fi novel of the same name. In 2024, Alison joined Canadian goth band Ghost Twin as keyboardist, producer, and vocalist.
The primary themes and inspirations of Alison’s work evoke the weird, the otherworldly, and the unspoken. Her interdisciplinary arts practice confronts otherness in identity and embodiment along the intersections of Queerness, memory, and reality in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Moving from a long standing DIY background into the academic field, Alison's works maintain a heart-first raw ethos that is expanded by musical theory studies and formal classical training. They graduated from the University of Manitoba in Spring 2024 with a Bachelor of Music, majoring in Composition. With a prior background in film studies and directing, Alison specializes in composition for many forms of media, as well as video editing, production, writing, and narrative development. They have performed with festivals across Canada as solo electronic act Mutable Body, produced short films and documentaries for television and the web, worked in 3D graphic design, and are currently working on multiple novels.
When not actively producing creative work or nurturing community networks, Alison explores magical virtual spaces with her cat Jellybean as a familiar and spiritual confidant.