LABOUR is the collaborative project of Farahnaz Hatam and Colin Hacklander, whose compositions and performances center the transformative potential of sound. Trained in molecular biology, Hatam works primarily with SuperCollider, a complex platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition that is a language unto itself. Colin Hacklander is a percussionist, drummer and composer, with a background in post-tonal theory and electronic music. Together, LABOUR compose ambitious and reverently experimental audioworks. Their practice promotes active listening and a heightened sensory awareness.

In Noise: The Political Economy of Music, French theorist Jacques Attali argues that music is emblematic of our entire social order: fetishized, de-ritualized, and repressed, it exists mostly as a commodity. Attali writes, “Today, in embryonic form, beyond repetition, lies freedom: more than a new music, a fourth kind of musical practice. It heralds the arrival of new social relations. Music is becoming composition.” LABOUR work toward the beyond Attali speaks of: they exhibit a deep commitment to independence, and an artistic rigour that defies commercial modes of production.

LABOUR entered Callie’s as collaborators of Isabel Lewis; they have since become cooperative members of the sound studio, where they are currently producing new work as well as a project in collaboration with musicians in Dakar. Titled Transcriptions, the project focuses on the legacy of Senegalese master drummer Doudou N’diaye Rose, for which their team, in collaboration with Berlin Atonal, have recorded over 500 original drum patterns from the family of Doudou in Dakar.

As of 2020, LABOUR are NTS Radio residents, and are 2021 fellows of the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Previously, the duo ran the experimental music venue in Berlin “N.K.” which hosted over 450 concerts and workshops between 2008 and 2015 in addition to artist residencies and studios, following their mission to engage the public with the avant-garde.