Israel Strom

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Israel (IJ) Jude Strom (born December 13, 2003) is a Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, theorist and educator from Calgary, Alberta. His work, spanning multiple projects and collaborations, including the release of Fizz Vol. 1 and touring as a keyboardist with Knower. Strom has worked, recorded and performed with phonon, Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi, Sam Wilkes, David Binney, Anatole Muster, Jonathan Berroa, Dave Eggar, Rob Araujo, ZackGrooves, Saxologic, Daedelus, Suzie Collier and Jules Buckley. Strom was the keyboardist for Louis Cole’s May 2023 trio tour, and has since toured several times with Cole and Knower, including Louis Cole & Metropole Orkest’s “Nothing” tour in 2025 conducted by Jules Buckley. Strom and phonon released their magnum opus, Fizz Vol. 1 in 2025, which was crucial in codifying the Fizz genre and igniting the Fizz movement. Strom has been one of the most vocal apologists for the Fizz movement, being involved to varying degrees in Fizz music, explanatory Fizz content, Fizzmemes and FizzWiki.

Early Life

Strom was born in Calgary, Alberta on December 13, 2003. He has Haitian, English and Swedish ancestry. His grandfather, Raymond Strom introduced him to GarageBand at the age of 5, forming his passion for music production. Starting at the age of 9, he took piano and bass lessons from Derek Stoll, a Jazz piano instructor at the Mount Royal University Conservatory. Strom played keyboards and bass on his church’s worship team from age 11-12.

Artistry

Strom has a distinctly cerebral, left-brained "denovistic" approach to music, often describing music creation as tedious and frustrating. He claims to be on the autism spectrum (undiagnosed) and credits that for his hyper-fixation on polyrhythms and music theory in general.

Influences

Strom's influences during his formative years include artists like Jacob Collier, Frank Zappa, Louis Cole, Knower, Dirty Loops, Adam Neely and Sungazer.

Music Theory

Bridge tuplet inside of a non-dyadic tuplet from IJ & phonon getfizzed Vol. 1

Polyrhythms are the most recognized music theoretic trope in Strom's compositions and playing style. He started becoming more interested in polyrhythms when he first heard polyriddim, phonon's controversial Riddim single from 2020 that brought the concepts of polyrhythms and nested tuplets to a wider audience. Strom has since utilized many polyrhythms in his collaborations with phonon and in general. On October 30, 2022, Strom posted an Instagram reel titled “Polytonal Polyrhythm Warmup”. This video started a viral trend of pianists playing difficult polyrhythmic etudes, with Strom’s etudes garnering over 20 million views across platforms. His YouTube video, titled “10:2 10[4:3+7]:2 12:4 11:4 3[9:1+4:1+9:1]:4” (written in Stromian tuplet notation) is the most watched video about nested tuplets on the internet. In early 2026, he coined the term "bridge tuplets" for a concept that was being talked about in the Fizz community.

Discography

At the age of 15, Strom began putting out a series of albums, releasing his first album, “IJ’s Adventure” on August 25, 2019, later releasing “Adaptation” on June 13, 2020 and “Lightning Portal” on August 30, 2020. “My Turn” from Adaptation was later re-arranged by Everything Yes for their debut album “Volume 1”, and was performed live on their tour with Sungazer.

On April 28, 2022, Strom, Daniel Hayn and Noa Denton released “Database”, a Jazztronica EP featuring a wide range of Jazz instrumentalists.

On May 24, 2024, Strom, Conner and Zack Thomas released "Field Trip", a maximalist, genre-bending EP.

On April 17, 2025, Strom, phonon and collaborators Ben Francis and Noa Denton released Fizz Vol. 1.

Albums

• IJ's Adventure (2019)
• Adaptation (2020)
• Lightning Portal (2020)
• Fizz Vol. 1 (2025)

EPs

• The Dream Tapes (2020)
• Database (2022)
• Field Trip (2024)

Controversy

Strom received backlash for speaking out publicly against the use of generative AI in music, calling for AI music to be labelled.

“I personally think that if your song includes any AI generated audio, you should have to put a label right on the album cover. And if you’re not comfortable with such a label taking up space on your album cover, why are you comfortable with putting AI in your music?” - IJ

Strom has also been criticized for using "made-up" Fizz music theory terms like "bridge tuplets", and trying to bring back obscure alternate names for the melodic minor modes like "cappadocian" and "asgardian"