Interview/Album Review: Matthew Cha - ‘A.I. Love U’
Photo by Chetan
Interview/Album Review by Sally Watanabe
Matthew Cha is a multi-faceted artist, producer and curator of sounds from Seoul, Korea who is currently based in Washington, D.C. His latest album release, A.I. Love U, features an exploration of soundscapes engineered on the Buchla synthesizer, with added textures of techno beats and groovy jazz elements.
The concept for his latest album started before the mainstream takeoff of artificial intelligence, and invites listeners on a journey that dances between electronic and acoustic sounds. Despite the name of the album, no A.I. was used in the making of this artistic expression. “I didn't understand how any sort of machine could create something that I always considered to be distinctly human…and I think kind of emotionally and psychologically trying to reconcile those ideas is what led to the creation of these songs,” remarked Cha.
The first track on the album, “Just What People Do”, sets the tone for a sonic journey with a narrator guides us to think about what it means to be human. The beginning of the story focuses on a man who observes a fox eating a rabbit, and begins to salivate. Breaking down the walls between our perceived structure of society and our true animalistic instincts, it alludes to a confusion around how we truly view the reality of the world around us. “I've always felt as though an essential trait of human society is the ability to not behave just entirely animalistically… and now I'm being reminded of my own tendency to act like an animal.”
Photo by Jamie Rosenberg
The expression of these questions around “who am I?” and what it means to be conscious are driven by the eclectic range and spacey layers of the Buchla synth. Cha has been playing live shows and experimenting with this powerful tool for many years, and was able to find a deeper connection to the instrument where it took on a life of its own. In school he studied jazz saxophone and is forging a path to bridge the gap between electronic and acoustic instruments. In this album, the saxophone adds a clear and bright contrast to the complexity of the electronic instruments, showing how the blend of both provides a sense of fluidity and mysticism.
Each track on the album weaves through the narrative with energetic pulses that pull the listener to embody the idiosyncrasies of the sounds through movement. Upbeat dance tracks such as “Microplastic” leave reverberations trickling down your spine. We move through darker tones and grooving galactic beats with the bubbly energy of “Elastic Ethic.” Tracks like “Neuro Fuzzy” tickle your brain with the saxophone and Buchla contrasting with their color and timbre. In the middle of the album, the question is raised– what’s wrong with me? With an immersion into the soundscapes crafted with careful intention, we begin to question who is human and who is machine.
“I wanted to be very conscious of a human writing music in an AI powered world…That's kind of the situation that I'm finding myself in where elements of my humanity are being so modulated by these growing relationships with technology. It's difficult to know where one line ends and the other begins.”
“Love Letters in Korean'' gets into the heart of Cha’s techno jazz sound, with the saxophone dancing up and down while filters sweep and drum beats drive the groove on. As far as the future with A.I. is concerned, Cha hopes to find it useful for things like taxes and laundry so he can spend more time making art. Even with a distinct separation between technological automation and the human touch, he still finds that this album was uniquely influenced by the instruments he used to create it, rather than forcing the sounds from them. “The input structures are so unique, they really make you feel like you're part of the instrument rather than just playing it.”
You see Matthew Cha and his dynamic performances with his Buchla at the Bossa Nova Civic Club in New York City on July 22nd, and at his residency at the Feel Listening lounge in D.C. every last Thursday of the month.
Photo by Chetan