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music for aluminum corn

by matt robidoux

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Kunaki CD in sleeve, made to order and shipped direct to you from the factory

    Includes unlimited streaming of music for aluminum corn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Button/Pin/Patch + Digital Album

    high quality aluminum cast enamel pin

    Includes unlimited streaming of music for aluminum corn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 20 

      $7 USD or more 

     

  • comes free with all orders.
    yellow and glow in the dark

      $1 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Aluminum Corn Tee
    T-Shirt/Shirt + Digital Album

    designed by Milo Moyer-Battick. 2 color: black/aluminum gloss on neon green.

    Includes unlimited streaming of music for aluminum corn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Limited Edition Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    cassette edition of 150 by Crash Symbols
    crashsymbols.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-aluminum-corn

    Includes unlimited streaming of music for aluminum corn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
flute forest 01:33
2.
3.
shrimp dance 03:22
4.
5.
6.
7.
green corn 02:33
8.
9.
10.
cobwork 03:42
11.

about

ESCALATOR FROM DREAMWORLD video, directed by 5K Candle
youtu.be/VNbEED-Vzp0

Out of the vast glistening soils of electronic music, nurtured in the resounding legacy of Mills College, and harbored in the experimentalism of the Bay Area music community, San Francisco-based artist and musician Matt Robidoux brings us their latest offering, Music for Aluminum Corn, a summation and celebration of accessible instrument building, engaging systems for improvisation, and new compositions designed with and for their new instrument, the corn synth (full name: Kinetically Operated Randomness Network)—a touch-controlled aluminum synthesizer shaped like two corn cobs.

Eleven tracks explore the versatility of the instrument as a leader, a contributor, and an instigator. Robidoux, a Mills College alum, reflects the powerful echo and artistic legacy of Mills in their design of the corn synth, modeling it after the Buchla 158, the original synthesizer used at the San Francisco Tape Music Center at the late Mills College. The instrument was invented during Robidoux’s residency at ACRE in Wisconsin, where they cast two corn cob moldings in aluminum. Movement and touch determine the parameters of pitch, velocity, and duration. This makes for an accessible instrument, at once charming and absurd, but also a powerful synthesis of Robidoux’s practice creating space for unrestricted musical improvisation and their engagement with Pauline Oliveros’ AUMI (Adaptive Use Musical Instrument).

In the wake of Mills closing, Robidoux’s continued work with a recurring cast of Mills alum and new Bay Area collaborators speaks volumes to its impact on Bay Area experimental music and electronic music at large. Matt invites these musicians into the performance space to make a warm, hypnagogic, and angular patchwork of fuzzy flute work, warbly electronic textures, crystalline rhythm, cloudbreak chimings of saxophone, and the sylvan wanderings of string quartet. Sound is captured, processed, and engaged through the corn synth, and each song breathes with evolving possibilities. The notated music seeds chance and surprises, and does not impose strict forms. It creates open, playful spaces, where improvisation embellishes and colors the music.

Personal field recordings are also blended into the mix, giving this music a sense of place and opening a musical fourth wall between synthesis and sensory. Be it a park, a field, or a rental in Montreal, this music is homegrown, composed in a joining of electronic and acoustic sounds. Track titles like “Shrimp Dance” and “Green Corn” or “Cobwork” are lighthearted allusions to running themes and musical developments, leaving room for the music to sound its own name and set its own mood. These motifs return with a different relationship to the corn synth, taking on new camouflage or donning new meaning in an altered soundscape.

Music for Aluminum Corn is Robidoux’s research and exploration of a new instrument’s capabilities, charged and conjured through Robidoux’s continued practice as an improviser, musician, and community builder. This music represents a patient and dynamic breadth of time, artistic growth, Matt becoming a parent, and accessible frontiers in improvisation, technology, and collaboration. The personal and intimate binds these factors into this succinct artwork, Music for Aluminum Corn—for the hungry ear and the joyful observer.

-Cody Putman

credits

released June 23, 2023

Del Sol Quartet (Sam Weiser, Benjamin Kreith, Charlton Lee, Kathryn Bates) — strings (1,7,8,9,10)

Carrie Ford DeCunzo — french horn (6,10,11)

Cole Pulice — alto saxophone (6,10,11)

José Fernando Solares — alto saxophone (6,10,11)

Mitch Stahlmann — flute (1,6,10,11)

Michelle Lee — flute (1,6,10,11)

Jordan Glenn — drums (6,11)

Matt Robidoux — compositions, corn synth, fretless bass, guitars, xylophone

Recorded at home, Vintage Synth Museum LA, Montreal airbnb, Santo Recording Oakland

Mixed by Matt Robidoux

Mastered by Nathan Corder

(1,6,7,8,9,10,11) engineered by Zachary James Watkins at Santo Recording

Album artwork and design by Milo Moyer-Battick

Cover photo by Abby Banks

Tape photos by Chris Farstad and Liz Pavlovic

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

matt robidoux San Francisco, California

composer, improviser

corn synth,
hay seed electronic music

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