Matt McBane crafts vivid sonic landscapes through intricate patterns and fluid atmospheres on his latest album, Buoy. Synthesizers drift through gently propulsive rhythms, reshaping perspectives into nuanced moods and speculative reflections. Movement is at the heart of Buoy, with evolving sequences drawing emotional depth from shifting melodies and rich, tonal dreamscapes.
McBane expands the sonic palette with searing violin passages and delicate piano accents, making the music feel like a living, breathing entity. Within each track, small moments crystallize into dazzling shrines of possibility, as Buoy carves out its place in the cosmic expanse. It’s a stunning achievement.
Buoy is OUT NOW. Catch Matt live in New York and Los Angeles in the next few months. More information at his website HERE.
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I always like starting at the very beginning. I’d love to hear about some of your earliest memories of music and sound – are there certain things that stand out to you as memorable or formative from when you were younger? What are some of your first memories related to music?
Well, I first started playing violin as a preschooler, so I’ve been playing violin as long as I can remember. I’ve also always been attracted to certain kinds of tactile, colorful sounds. In my album, Bathymetry, I use many sounds that I remember fascinating me as a little kid: the bending of a metal sheet, the swishing of water in a mixing bowl, the boinging of a ruler, etc.
More memories:
The driving quality of Scottish fiddle music that I played in elementary school and seeing how the fiddle can get a large crowd whooping and dancing. Buying my first CD in seventh grade as a subtle rebellion against dominant head-banger’s fare: The Cure’s Wish. Channeling my teenage emotions into playing the Soviet romanticism of Shostakovich’s chamber music. Immersing myself in San Diego’s all-ages punk scene around age 15-16 and finding an outlet for my teenage rambunctiousness in the physicality of that music. Discovering John Coltrane and Steve Reich as senior in high school, and going for long drives to soak in their albums. Getting into electronic music around age 18 listening to Aphex Twin, DJ Shadow, Bjork, Tricky, etc.
When did you start learning to play music, and what eventually drew you to violin?
I actually started playing violin at age 5 after being inspired by watching it on Sesame Street. Then it was Suzuki violin and some fiddle through elementary school, and serious study of violin and playing in orchestras and chamber groups in Junior High and High School. I also started playing rock guitar in Junior High and did a few years of back-of-the-guitar-shop lessons. Then, some piano study in college while studying composition.
Did composing/creating original music come later? What was that pathway like?
I did a bit of composing for assignments in my theory class in early high school and made halting attempts at songwriting in my garage punk band in high school, but the idea of composing really took off for me when I first came across the music of Steve Reich in my senior year, and I immediately knew *that’s* what I want to do with my life. From there I went on to study composition at university which ended up being more conservative than I expected (I guess I thought I was going to art school), but I learned a lot.
Buoy is your first primarily electronic and entirely solo album. What led you to take this direction, and how did it change your approach to composition?
I had always wanted to make an electronic album, but it just took me a long time to get around to it and to conceptualize what it would be. And, I had plenty of other projects to keep me busy in the meantime.
Your performance at National Sawdust in 2020 was the seed for this record. Can you describe that experience and how it influenced the development of Buoy?
I had the pleasure of taking a class called Spatial Sound with Laurie Anderson and Arto Lindsay. It was a great joy to spend a semester hearing Laurie speaking for a couple of hours each week, as I had listened to and been entranced by her voice on record for decades. Basically, I used the class as an impetus to finally develop a solo electronic-forward performance project, something I had wanted to do for a long time. The tracks Arpeggiator and Absence were developed in this class and then performed at National Sawdust, originally in a 20-speaker spatial version.
You’ve worked extensively with acoustic instruments, particularly violin. How did working with synthesizers shift your creative perspective?
I first started making electronic music off and on about 20 years ago in college, but my main artistic practice was in notated music for acoustic instruments for a long time. This included music for my band, Build, and my chamber and orchestral music. I did write electronic music including short film scores and music for dance, but never my own solo project. I guess it took me a while to conceptualize what my own solo project would look like and how it would relate to my other music. I also was just busy with other projects, and then really leaned into this project during the pandemic.
I suppose the rise of electronic music tutorial and performance videos on YouTube was also a catalyst, as I learned a lot about how favorite artists’ tracks and types of music were made through hours of studying there.
I also really like the immediacy of electronic music, in contrast to all my years of notated music. I liken it to being a sculptor vs. being an architect; where what you create is the actual piece of music, vs. creating a set of instructions (a score) for other people to make the music, months or years after you write it. That being said, I’m not leaving notated music behind, just doing both.
The album is described as blending elements of minimalism, fiddle music, and electronic manipulation. How do you see these influences interacting within Buoy?
I can give a few specific examples:
‘Turn Around Again’ came out of improvisation with a kid’s vocal synthesis app on my phone and my violin. As I started playing my violin into it, I found that a largely pentatonic melody generated compelling harmonies, and then I started just naturally adding Scottish fiddle-type ornamentations and settled on melody heavily influenced by Scottish fiddle. Then after recording the violin, I fed it through a glitchy guitar pedal to help bridge the gap between the violin and the synthetic voices.
Both ‘Addition’ and ‘Arpeggiator’ use some of the process-based techniques of the early works of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, like constructing phrases by adding one note at a time to complete a pattern. A lot of the compositional techniques these and other composers developed for acoustic instruments came out of their work with early electronic instruments. So, it feels very natural to apply these back to synthesizers.
Many of your past works have been noted for their strong sense of counterpoint and atmosphere. How did you approach structure and layering in Buoy?
I think of these as two different threads in my music. The focus on technique-forward composing, like counterpoint and process-based music. And, the focus on more emotion-forward composing, with an emphasis on nuance, atmosphere, and color. In different tracks, I lean more heavily in either direction. For instance, ‘Absence’ is a track heavily in the atmosphere direction, but I incorporate a formalistic, contrapuntal element with a long descending scale in the synth working against the arpeggiated piano. Or, ‘Addition’ is heavily in the formalistic direction, but I think a lot about the emotional and physical feeling of opening a cutoff filter against contracting number patterns.
Were there particular sonic references or influences—artists, places, or even non-musical inspirations—that shaped Buoy?
Well, part of why I never released a solo electronic album until now is that I couldn’t quite figure out what that would mean for me, and what kind of aesthetic space it would occupy. So much of the electronic music I loved was in some sort of experimental dialog with dance music. But, I could never find my way into creating my own music in this space. When I first came across Laurie Spiegel’s music after the 2012 reissue of The Expanding Universe, it was a bit of revelation: playing in the same pattern-based sandbox as the early minimalism I had been so influenced by but in the world of synths. Caterina’s Barbieri 2017 Patterns of Consciousness was also inspiring: pattern-based, drum-less synthesizer music using minimalist techniques. And, Aphex Twin’s Drukqs was an early inspiration and is kind of my eternal permission slip to put wildly different tracks on the same album. I’m kind of curious how people feel about how wide a gamut of music there is on this album – in my head, it all makes sense together!
Much of the album was conceived in the early months of the pandemic and shaped by that experience – the eerie and ominous weeks in Brooklyn with death tolls rising, sirens blaring, fear of what was to come, concern for our fellow New Yorkers; weeks of protesting in the streets; joyous long bike rides across town with my pregnant wife; a cross-country drive to see my grandmother in the days before she died; the anticipation of becoming a parent.
The title Buoy suggests something floating or drifting. How does that concept manifest in the music?
I was attracted to that word both for the qualities of floating and drifting (‘Drift’ is another track title) and for the qualities of uplift. Some of the tracks are chill and floaty, but some go to some darker places, and the idea of being able to go there and still be buoyed resonated with me. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time in the ocean over my life (in all kinds of conditions and all over the world), and I tend to be drawn to ocean metaphors.
What were some things that surprised you in making this record? What challenged you?
I guess a surprise is how so many of the tracks just seemed to fall in my lap out of improvisations vs. being pre-meditated about them. The tracks that are more modular synth-based, were mostly born out of building a patch and then stumbling on an idea or sound I like. Then, treating the patch like its own instrument and performing/improvising on it into my recording device over and over dozens of times (while kind of losing my mind) until I got the shape I wanted.
To close, as always, what are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
A distant train whistle, ice clinking a glass and getting higher in pitch with each sip, my 4-year-old daughter’s voice losing enunciation as she drifts off to sleep.
Foxy Digitalis depends on our awesome readers to keep things rolling. Pledge your support today via our Patreon or subscribe to The Jewel Garden. You can also make a one-time donation via Ko-fi.
