Brooklyn percussionist and electronic conspirator Matt Evans will release his upcoming record, New Topographics, on April 17 through Whatever’s Clever. Exploring some truly fascinating experimental aesthetics, the collection approaches the idea of digital space and how we populate these intangible territories. Evans concocts a swirling miasma of drum-driven rhythms, ambient plateaus and mutated soundscapes that explore the boundaries between our physical selves and the digital personas we create.
Written and recorded in December 2018, the album was the product of Evans’ residency at Brooklyn art space Pioneer Works. During a four-week submersion into the concept of “hyperobjects”, he found inspiration in a poem by American author Richard Brautigan, as well as the works of Timothy Morton, a professor at Rice University known for his studies in object-oriented philosophy.
“For me, there’s a link between these sonic byproducts and human empathy— a gateway towards a greater conversation on what it means to live the paradox of complicitness— a guide to re-focusing how we understand the consequences of our actions by way of sound,” he explains. “The first step toward any significant change in our behaviour is becoming aware of the object like significance of our actions. Making this record has been a way of tuning my ears to this phenomenon. To learn the language of these object-like byproducts so as to speak the language my own way and further empathize with that which I was not previously informed.”
Recently, audio-visual collective Soop Groop (comprised of Vanessa Castro, Dara Hirsch, Melodie Stancato, and Evans) created a video for his recent single “Spinning Blossoms”. Incorporating home video visuals, abrupt filter shifts, and some fascinating choreography, the clip pairs wonderfully with Evans’ experimental percussive tendencies. The song is propulsive and angular, tactile and prone to spontaneous movement. You become lost in its circular rhythms and wobbly beats. Fastidiously opposed to categorization, the track ambles along at its own unique pace, inviting further attention but providing few concrete resolutions.
Castro describes her approach to the video:
“In the video for ‘Spinning Blossoms’, Matt, who scored this song and video, performs the various percussive and melodic loops that steady the rhythm of the song, while simultaneously falling out of sync with the actual performance of sound. Mel, the video’s choreographer, performs in another form of abyss, an empty office supply warehouse overflowing with detritus of corporate America.
“To me the challenge for this video was: how can an ‘object’ of performance be both repetitive and improvised in both sound and movement? How can singular experiences happening in different times and places create a simulation of linear time? Matt composed ‘Spinning Blossoms’ with self-made, sample-based, loops based on an internal rhythm that Matt himself created. I decided to follow that same framework.”
