by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
With a new arrival from Matt Robidoux quickly approaching there are two things that we feel are fairly certain: it will be interesting and it’s most likely going to be fun. While “fun” and “interesting” don’t always cross over in experimental music, for the San Francisco composter/auteur he’s nearly become defined by both sets, with an upbeat and boundless creativity always shining through. His latest album, At Dust, is due out October 1st via Already Dead Tapes and Records (Complainer, Cop Funeral, Victoria Blade), a fascinating album that layers glitchy electronics with dance grooves and a warped psychedelic flourish. It’s a great new addition to Robidoux’s generally unpredictable catalog. He’s pushing new ground, but there’s an accessibility to it.
“The Bouquet,” the record’s first single is a spiritual core for the record, a song that captures the erratic energy and beauty simultaneously, with skittering rhythms that squirm in all directions, horns that could come out of an Outkast single, and a poetic lyrical take that asks “what you doing with those flowers, dried flowers?” It’s an infectious tune, the type that makes you want to dance and just get generally weird with it. Which is exactly what Robidoux does in the Peter Nichols directed video.
Speaking about the video, Robidoux shared:
"‘The Bouquet’ was the one of the first pieces in the process for the album At Dust— for which all of the rhythms and textures on each track derive from a simple initial gesture. The gestures in this song are very connected to movement, and started as a motion tracking to MIDI fragment. The lyrics start from Jacques Prévert's poem "Le Bouquet,” which spoke well to my experience of joining movement with sonic energy. I sent the track to Matt Norman (Lily and Horn Horse) who did something stupendous with the layering of the horn solo! "Blue" by Eiffel 65, and "Crazy Frog" by Axel F were reference points for the design of the video, and Peter Nichols (Banny Grove, Nicey Music) gave the green screen footage I sent a full Teletubbies style treatment. The 8mm video style puts it out of time, in some kind of utopia that promotes body positivity and dedicating plenty of time for working on music."