by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
San Francisco’s Matt Robidoux approaches music with a framework of inclusivity at its core, creating music meant to inspire, to engage, and remind you that anyone can make music. Without prohibition, he creates with a deft irreverence, using every day resources to create transportive sounds, pulling us into a realm where anything seems possible. Following the release of 2021’s At Dust, Robidoux returns with Music For Aluminum Corn, a record composed and revolving around his very own corn synth, an instrument built with two touch-controlled aluminum corn cobs. Due out on June 23rd via Crash Symbols (Sam Gas Can, Psychic Skin, Log Across The Washer), Robidoux gives focus to his home-made synth while incorporating manipulated flutes, strings, saxophone, field recordings, and electronic rhythms to flesh out the sound.
As noted in the press release, the accessible synth is played using movement and touch to determine the parameters of pitch, velocity, and duration, from there, the rest is Robidoux’s compositional wizardry. “Escalator From Dreamworld” stirs and trickles, sustains, bleeps, and bloops, it’s utter disorientation in the most blissful ways. Chirps sound like birdsong at times, processed and repurposed, with a warping texture that always feels calm, even as unnatural sounds move into the natural world of the piece. The video, directed by 5K Candle captures the corn synth in all its aluminum casted glory, moving between fractal images and psychedelic visual shifts to waveforms and meditative atmospheres.