Rhyw: We wanted it to be something kind of warm. I guess that was the theme
âMor: warm, sweaty, danceflooryâŚthen the word âfeverâ came!
âRhyw: âŚyeahâŚfuzzy, warmâŚalso both from the mediterranean
âMor: ...then the AM is like nighttime! Because it's club musicâ
âRhyw: âŚyeah, AM/PM..and alsoâŚAlexâŚMorâŚA.MâŚ
âMor: âŚyeah⌠it kind of happened really fast.
Sat on a sofa, somewhere in Berlinâs Mitte district, Mor Elian and Rhyw reminisce on how their label name, Fever AM, came to be. Mor is sat bolt upright, hands waving, as if to conjure the label's vibe into something tangible from the air. Rhyw moves between reclined and seated, mooring Morâs light and breezy, kite-like energy. Throughout our conversation, it feels as though their thoughts and ideas are intertwinedâswirlingâas they fill in and finish each other's sentences (at times, one even interviewing the other). Cheeky grins and belly laughs galore. You could imagine them being primary school best friendsâa mischievous twosome on a mission, exploring the worldâreal and imaginedâtogether.
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That is, if they were from the same place. Mor grew up in LA and Tel Aviv. Rhyw was born in Wales and grew up between the UK and Greece. But considering their respective upbringings were over 7000 kilometres apart, the musical overlaps between them are quite something, almost parallel. Both into bands like Deftones, Queens of The Stone Age, Radiohead and Blur. Both with a love for electronic groups like Boards of Canada. And both with an appreciation for the weirder corners of dance music in labels like Warp. As kids of the CD-era, they both collected music from a very young age. The Prodigy, the UK rave band, was also a big one for them; Rhyw aged 8 and Mor aged 12. âI used to go into the CD shop and hound them for the new album⌠And clippings! Iâd cut out all The Prodigy stuffâ Rhyw remembers âBut what was the most uncool stuff [we liked]âŚâ
Rhyw: The really uncool thing would be Incubus!Mor: Incubus! [both burst into laughter]
âRhyw: All these early 2000âsâŚ
âMor: Oh my god, pleaseâŚ
âRhyw: âŚNo, this is great. [grins]
âMor: âŚoh my godâŚ
âRhyw: ...all these late 90s, early 2000s guitar bands that weren't necessarily cool or heads-y.
âMor: Youâre really trying to make us uncool... [still more laughter]
âRhyw: Yeah, I am.Mor: âWe were like 13 or 14!â [still a lot of laughter]
Joey Anderson can be thanked, in part, for Fever AM ever becoming a thing. Booked to play at the same party together, Mor closed her set on Andersonâs track "Nabta Playaâ which caught the attention of an on-listening Rhyw; the start of what would become a deep musical connection. At the time, Rhyw was still producing music as part of the techno duo Cassegrain and running the label Arcing Seas, when the techno scene was a little different to now. âWhen we met, it was at a time where I was gradually becoming more interested in doing other stuffâ he remembers, âI had kind of fallen into this grey techno scene, where everything was all very black and white, but I was always into other stuff. We had this similar vibe that we were both interested in and so we decided to start this new platform [Fever AM].â Cassegrain stopped making music together during the pandemic.
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The fact that Joey Andersonâs music is so hard to place seems like a fitting (some might even say fateful) way for Fever AMâs story to begin. As we start to get into the nuts and bolts of what Fever AM is, it turns out to be something equally as hard to define, âMaybe we're looking for a certain technicality level and vibe. But it's almost a feeling, when we hear something that we know belongs on the label, but it can sound completely different to any of the other tracks on there,â Mor explains, âour thing is that we donât like to have too many labels. We donât want to be reducedâ
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For Rhyw, the music on the label is about âmutationâŚwhen something exists in the in-between zoneâ. But their personalities are the glue that binds everything together. âWe are very silly people together. We love silliness in music. We love cheekiness and colourâ Mor adds. Indeed, thereâs a feeling of vitality across all of Fever AMâs now 7-years worth of music, that matches Mor and Rhywâs own lust for life; a feeling of youthfulness. âThe human experience is ever evolving and I think this moment where you stop evolving and developing is what I'm really scared of in lifeâitâs this place I never want to arriveâbecause itâs when you lose that youthfulness.â says Mor. âI want to stay in the world of exploring the unknown, discovering and experimentingâcreatively and personallyâfor the rest of my life. I will continue developing until there's no more. LiterallyâŚno Mor!â
The impetus to start Fever AM came from both Mor and Rhywâs yearning for a new direction. Mor wanted to take the process of putting out music back into her own hands and Rhyw was starting to establish his solo project once and for all and break away from the techno world. He also had the experience of running a label from his Arcing Seas project. âI was like âOkay, you know how to do it, I want to do it, let's do it!â Mor remembers, âWe wanted to create our own universeâŚI guess this is kind of where we exist.â They both had a lot of tracks sitting around without a home and so, Fever AM was born.
Rhyw: It was organic. We thought it would be fun to do this project togetherâŚno massive steps, no massive plans or goals, just that it would be fun to do itâŚ
Mor: âŚplus a need for us to express ourselves. We felt like we wanted to say something individually and we could do it togetherâŚ
Rhyw: âŚyeh, itâs a support systemâŚ
Mor: âŚand it still isâŚwe love doing this together. We love this project.  Â
Even though Fever AM started as a world for Mor and Rhyw to spread out in, itâs not 100% all about them. âWe love to platform people. It's really important for us.â says Mor, âItâs a huge passion to give people a platform, build a community and give back. It brings us a lot of joy.â Besides solo EPâs from Georgiaâs Gacha Bakradze and the enigmatic US producer, Xen Chron, they have also put out a number of compilations. Their V/A, I Hope You Are Well During These Strange Times, distributed 100% of the profits to the artists involved, in the early stages of the pandemic, when they had no income and times were uncertain. Â
Thereâs a lot of love and care that goes into the running of Fever AM. In the music selection and charitable mobility, but also in their visual identity too, which is Rhywâs department. As a graphic designer and illustrator, Rhyw uses fairly DIY methods to create the Fever AM artworks. Him and Mor screen printed every copy of their early output, all the way to number 10. More recently the visual identity has gone through an evolutionâa âmutationâ so to speakâas thereâs been a switch up from physical to digital production methods. But of course, they still find room for silliness within that new format. For example, the art for Rhywâs recent Mr. Melt EP looks like a complex 3D render, but it actually started life as a photo of dripping, melted, cheesy pizzaâŚ
Rhyw: I chopped it out. Masked out all the melted cheese, repeated it and layered itâŚ
Mor: ...taking something and shaping it into something else.
Alex: And, full circle, weâre at the word âmutationâ again.
Mor: The space between the plate and the pizza, is where we like to exist. [laughs]
Alex: Yeah! Fever AM is basicallyâŚhot cheese.
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