kraftwitch

kraftwitch (John Moletress) is a Philadelphia-based artist, music producer, DJ and founder of Three Wands Records.

Their artistic process is guided by the conversation between wild and urban landscapes, having spent equal amounts of time occupying each. With deep listening and archiving of nature elements through the use of field recordings, kraftwitch’s music is spatially playful, sliding in liminality between the natural and digital.

Having obtained multiple graduate degrees in music, dance performance and ecopsychology, they take an embodied approach to sound with live performance and DJ sets that evoke moving between territories, intimacy and vast environments.

In 2020, kraftwitch returned to music through the creating, coding and constructing of digital music instruments from found objects. Their following grew exponentially over the proceeding year as they livestreamed weekly performances from home during the pandemic. Additionally, they made several videos in the Colorado mountains, “playing” the materials of abandoned mines and other sites through the use of conductive digital interfaces. They took part in the worldwide 7-hour livestreamed opera “Full Pink Moon” May 2020, produced by Opera Povera and Gray Center for the Arts and Inquiry.

Prior to 2020, under their name John Moletress, toured performance work throughout the US and Europe, including a 24 hour durational performance called “Trigger Warnings and Other Attempts” - whereby they read Arthur Miller’s The Crucible repeatedly without stopping while performing sex work on Cam4, an artistic response to SESTA/FOSTA and the censorship of sex work.

Additionally, they have been an invited lecturer at such universities as George Washington University, Kings College (UK), Goldsmiths London (UK), Plymouth University (UK), and several others.

They have contributed radio shows to Hyde FM, Loose FM, Rinse FM, and their monthly radio show The Tarot Mixtapes can be heard on Great Circles Radio based in Philadelphia, PA.