Fia Fiell is the moniker of Vietnamese-Australian synthesist, pianist and composer Carolyn Schofield, whose intricate and improvisatory compositions derive from meditations on deep listening, growth and transcendence. Known for her distinctive sound and performance style, she plays and processes multiple keyboard synthesisers in real time to create dreamlike yet unsettling sonic worlds that meld lush melodic cycles, vibrant digital textures and soaring drones. Silk-gentle and immensely powerful, the sound worlds she creates seem to spirit-forth from immaterial planes. Time and rhythm are approached as if elastic – like an organic membrane breathing and pulsing autonomically.

A sought-after performer in the realms of electronic music, experimental, rock and beyond, she’s played synths with beloved Australian artists Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Jonnine Standish (HTRK) and Jaala; toured Europe, the UK and the USA; and performed prolifically in Melbourne and Australia for celebrated festivals and institutions such as Dark Mofo, Rising Festival, MPavilion, the National Gallery of Victoria, Phoenix Central Park, Inner Varnika and many more. Her solo, ensemble and spatial works have been commissioned by Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, the Australian Art Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, the Australian National Academy of Music and Play On.

Her recent deep listening work for Longform Editions, ‘Endless Filament’, presents a distinctive and dynamic approach to drone music through a constant flowing, unfurling and building of tones and subtle melodies; an approach that contrasts with the lo-fi improvisatory and cyclic melodic language of her debut album ‘All In The Same Room’ – described in Bandcamp’s Best Cassette Releases of 2018 as coming ‘awfully close to perfection’.