Excited by the sonic possibilities offered by digitally augmented instruments, the collaborative practice of FHM (Ferguson/Hayes/Michalakos) explores common themes of physicality, gestural interaction, and responsiveness in live electronic music. This trio utilises laptop-processed electric guitar with external controllers; drum machines, haptic-controllers, analogue synthesizers and laptop; and a computer augmented drum kit. The goal is to navigate a sonic territory that darts from spattered beats, to tightly coupled rhythmic passages, through free noise improvisation, to gratuitous pop ‘hooks’, all the while striving to negotiate structures and establish communication within a collaborative improvisational environment.

With Lauren Sarah Hayes now based in Arizona and Christos Michalakos in Dundee, FHM certainly inhabit very different parts of the globe. Nevertheless, in December 2016 FM performed at Music or Machine? in Scotland (UK), and in May 2015 FH performed at Varsity Theatre in Baton Rouge (USA) for New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2015.

In the summer of 2014 FHM performed alongside John Butcher and Jonathan Impett at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) in London, they also played a concert in the music department at Edinburgh University, and recorded the following videos at Edinburgh College of Art (filmed  by Tobias Feltus; audio/video editing by John Robert Ferguson).

Live at Edinburgh University June 2014