Project
2014
MUSICAL INTELLIGENCE
THE ECONOMIST INTERVIEW
SENIOR EDITOR - THE ECONOMIST
A champion for a new generation of young musicians, Harry Yeff is pushing the human voice to new musical, scientific and artistic heights.
You could call Harry Yeff, aka Reeps One, a virtuoso instrumentalist who happens to use the human voice. But that doesn’t quite get at the extraordinary music he makes with voice alone. Comparisons fail to explain the sounds he creates because they are new to the human ear. His music is rooted in the UK dance music subcultures “grime” and “dubstep,” but it’s now as much a contemporary experimental jazz, improvisational and rhythmically complex. And no comparison gets at the scope of his particular project, its ambition and interdisciplinary engagement.
In early October, for instance, he is in New York working with Bell Labs, now Nokia Bell Labs, on a programme called Experiments in Art and Technology or E.A.T. Bell, the grand old lady of American telephony, has a long history of collaborating with artists. It established E.A.T in the mid-1950s, working with pioneers of abstract art and the new radicals of classical music. Its contemporary collaboration with Mr Yeff is a two-parter. “I have been collecting sounds from all over the world, and we are going to end up with an encyclopaedia of contemporary voices,” Mr Yeff says. “All these people have discovered sounds that even phoneticians had no idea about. They are all going to be logged and I’m going to use them all to create a documentary and compose a piece of music.”
Mr Yeff, born in East London and just 28, has emerged as not only the star practitioner but also champion of and figurehead for a new generation of young musicians pushing the human voice into remarkable new areas. “Now you have 100,000 young people out there who are doing R&D for the human voice,” he says. “They want to create music to a standard, to a machine-like quality. There are still new sounds being discovered. And it is really fun for me because I’m the bridge between something that is just a subculture but is doing things that have never been seen or heard before.”
Mr Yeff started as what you might call a traditional musician before he discovered “beatbox” culture, sometimes called “vocal percussion”, at 15 and realised there were things he could do with his voice that his external instruments could not. “I really didn’t know anything about beatbox culture. But I was trying to write and compose very simple pieces for violin and drums and I realised that I could play both parts at the same time with my voice. You can create all these complex rhythms with other things on top. And there were dynamics there that I couldn’t achieve with an instrument. And then I began to think, ‘ok, so what else can I do?’ As soon as I set my mind to it, there was this exponential growth. I don’t know why I have been able to take it so far, but there are things that I can do that are not found anywhere else.”
“We are going to end up with an encyclopaedia of contemporary voices” - Reeps One
Mr Yeff’s skills even attracted the attention of University College London, which was planning a neuroscientific study of expert behaviour (Mr Yeff admits he has one advantage over other experts in that he can display his expert behaviour while lying down in an MRI scanner). “They were trying to look at what expertise looks like at a neurological level,” Mr Yeff says. “The fundamental idea—and you can feel it when you are trying to learn something new—is that there is this stammering of concepts. Over time you practise and you practise and after a while what you are trying to do goes beyond your conscious understanding and your mind starts allowing you to get to flow state.”
And for Mr Yeff, that “flow state” is the key to unlocking deeper instincts and accessing hidden mental reserves. “Your instincts are a whole world of mechanisms that are very old and very powerful and they are there waiting to be used. It’s like all this extra RAM that is in your mind waiting to be used, but you can’t use it effectively with your consciousness. You can’t say, ‘hey brain, this is what I am trying to do and these are the parts of the mind that are going to lead me there’. It takes time and flow, and if you do something enough you can achieve that. It’s the way we learn a language, so our intention can manifest itself immediately and smoothly. And this is where you get expertise. The study gave me a framework to move towards expertise and it is something that I am very proud to have been part of.”
Mr Yeff continues to stretch and push himself into new areas. He has also recently collaborated with Rama Allan, the visual effects specialist of The Mill, creating something they call See Sound. Mr Yeff has a history of collaborating with artists to create visuals for his live shows, often reacting to what Mr Yeff is doing with his voice. Mr Allan and his team have created a programme that visualises Mr Yeff’s voice in sculptural forms. “I make certain sounds and, depending on their frequency and texture, the programme shapes a digital form of marble or gold. And eventually we want to take them out of the digital realm and 3-D print them,” he says. “I end up doing things I never normally do because I have this feedback loop while I’m watching it develop these forms. Those are the projects I love, where you can visually represent what you are doing.”
“Your instincts are a whole world of mechanisms that are very old and very powerful and they are there waiting to be used.” - Reeps One
For Mr Yeff, this kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration is essential for the contemporary creative. “It’s just 2017 basically. If you are a visual artist, a designer, a musician, you have to be more. You have to have a foundation in something, a discipline, but you have to push that as far as you can. Everyone who thinks of himself or herself as a creative must look at new ways of exploring what they do. That is what true intelligence is I think—trying to connect dots that haven’t been connected before. That is why I have pushed things with my voice. We only get one chance to be here, so you should really push and try and do things that have never been done.”
Work
2023
LEIPZIG INTERNATIONAL BALLET
FUSION is a story of balance between the archetypes of human, machine, and nature. Much like a chess grandmaster using any method possible to improve play, composer Harry Yeff (REEPS100) employs every available approach to push his voice beyond what we believe to be possible. Yeff possesses one of the most unique and varied vocal ranges on Earth, and through his collaboration with A.I, he has surpassed even his own limitations.
Work
2022 - Present
VOICE GEMS
The VOICE GEMS project is a vibrant, unprecedented meditation highlighting the most remarkable, influential, and critically endangered voices on earth to generate digital gemstones and physical sculptures. The works exist as NFT's, print, 3-D print, digital video, large scale projection and cast sculpture.
Work
2019 - Present
CREATING AN A.I SECOND SELF
Second Self is an arts and science collaboration between Reeps One, Dada Bots and the E.A.T. program at Bell Labs created in 2018. The collaboration is a live performance piece designed to integrate machine learning and generative audio as a practical artistic tool and to raise awareness about machine learning beyond the academic, technological and engineering demographics via the medium of film. The film has been showcased at United Nations, Davos, Google Exec, Ars Electronica and more.
Work
2020
DAVOS 2020: VOICES OF LIGHT
Join vocal artist Harry Yeff, also known as Reeps100, and members of the London Contemporary Voices Choir on an immersive sonic and visual journey that explores the capacity of the human voice as a metaphor for its boundless possibilities for a deeper connection with others.
Work
2019
SEE SOUND
'See Sound' is a generative artwork experience that creates sound sculptures based on the human voice. Participants engage with the artwork via a microphone and hardware interface. They can trigger different visual constructions within the music visualizer, based on vocal experimentation. Each construction is a sculpture unique to its creator.
Work
2020
CNBC INTERVIEW
Work
2017
WE SPEAK MUSIC
We Speak Music – the documentary series – is a groundbreaking, artistic collaboration between the international world-class beatboxer and visual artist – Harry Yeff (aka Reeps One) and the world-renowned, technological innovator – Nokia Bell Labs. This collaboration is an investigative journey of human communication offering insights into the voice from a scientific, cultural, technological and artistic perspective while using beatboxing as the ultimate exploration of its potential.
Work
2017
DOES NOT EXIST VR
'Does Not Exist' won the award for Best Sound Design Experience at the 2017 Raindance Film Festival.
In collaboration with media innovation giants The Mill and Aurelia Sounds, I scored and performed in does Does Not Exist, the worlds first Virtual Reality music video made with gyroscopic 3D sound. The two and a half minute video shifts dynamically between acoustic experiences and atmospheres, combining abstract environments with surrealist elements and haunting, vocal composition. I am portrayed as an unearthly figure jumping freely between a playground of worlds, the experience transmits with physical and sonic accuracy an unworldly journey.
Work
2017
POLYPHONIC PLAYGROUND
In collaboration with Fashion Space Gallery and Studio PSK, Yeff created Polyphonic Playground—an interactive sound installation blending childhood play with musical innovation. Swings, slides, and climbing frames were reimagined with electric paint and trigger pads, transforming the structure into a large-scale instrument. By removing traditional tools, Yeff challenges musicians to explore sound through movement, curiosity, and play.
Work
2018
VOCAL VIBRATION IN WATER
A desire to visualise vocal music inspired me to experiment with audio-visual work and physical phenomena as early as 2012. Cymatics — the use of vibration as a medium to move, organise and control matter — has since constituted a prominent focus in my work.
I continue to reinterpret cymatics as a means for invention, developing custom-designed, large-scale visualisers for performance. The Cymatics photography series and live Cymatics performances received an ARS PRIX nomination in 2016.
Work
2018
CYMATICS LIVE PERFORMANCE
A desire to visualise vocal music inspired me to experiment with audio-visual work and physical phenomena as early as 2012. Cymatics — the use of vibration as a medium to move, organise and control matter — has since constituted a prominent focus in my work.
I continue to reinterpret cymatics as a means for invention, developing custom designed, large-scale visualisers for performance. The Cymatics photography series and live Cymatics performances received an ARS PRIX nomination in 2016.
Work
2019
ORGANIC ELECTRONIC VIBRATION STRUCTURE
A desire to visualise vocal music inspired me to experiment with audio-visual work and physical phenomena as early as 2012. Cymatics — the use of vibration as a medium to move, organise and control matter — has since constituted a prominent focus in my work.
I continue to reinterpret cymatics as a means for invention, developing custom designed, large-scale visualisers for performance. The Cymatics photography series and live Cymatics performances received an ARS PRIX nomination in 2016.
Work
2014
MUSICAL INTELLIGENCE THE ECONOMIST INTERVIEW
A champion for a new generation of young musicians, Harry Yeff is pushing the human voice to new musical, scientific and artistic heights.
Work
2014
Attention. Deficit. Order.
Attention. Defecit. Order. was my first major solo exhibition in London. With the exhibition, I explored the often-overlooked benefits of mental processes associated with Attention Deficit Disorder, including high functionality and hyperfocus. I wanted to challenge negative notions of hyperactivity and celebrate complexity through multi-media sensory installations demonstrating high levels of complexity, precision and cognitive flow. I wanted to subvert the idea of chaos normally associated with ADD.
Work
2016
YEFF & HOPPER
As part of the exhibition Attention. Deficit. Order., artists Yeff and Ben Hopper presented The Circle of Naked—a participatory body painting performance exploring empowerment through vulnerability and self-expression. Over fifty participants, including women, men, and children, became living canvases, engaging in a collective act of transformation. The physicality of the paint sparked a range of emotional responses, from shyness to bold embodiment, blurring the lines between observer and performer.
Work
2016
HARVARD RESIDENCY & ART TECH PSYCHE LECTURE
Invited by Arts @ 29 and the Linguistics Department, Yeff joined Harvard University as a guest lecturer and artist-in-residence. He began by lecturing on experimental vocalism in phonetics, drawing on his background as a beatboxer to explore psychoacoustics and voice innovation.
Work
2025 - Present
