Interview | Composer and Musician Matt Hsu

Next up on my Broadwayworld local artists interview is Taiwanese-Australian composer and musician based in Meanjin, performing as Matt Hsu's Obscure Orchestra. Enamoured with natural sounds, As a multi-instrumentalist, he plays over 20 instruments. Drawing on his cross-cultural upbringing, Matt creates otherworldly compositions that celebrate difference, inclusivity and liminal spaces between cultures; blending world and orchestral instruments with field recordings and everyday objects.

Matt additionally is an advocate for marginal communities, using music projects to underscore refugee, immigrant, First Nations, gender and abilities diverse issues through artistic collaborations. I recently saw Matt Hsu and his band perform a gig and was so mesmerised by his unique voice as a storyteller and how it translated through music, that I had this deep sudden urge to interview him for this segment. So I did, and here's what he had to say....

VIRAG: I saw your Obscure Orchestra play in November last year and I remember feeling very moved by both the pain and the joy of the stories that were embedded within the compositions and lyrics. What was the process like in crafting such exquisite stories through song? Did you and the musicians find it uplifting, sharing those personal stories in such a way?

MATT: Thanks for having me Virag. It was truly such a beautiful shared experience to have had with my collaborators - all of whom I've come to love dearly. During the show, there was this giddy electric feeling of "we're really doing this!" as we looked around at each other. After the concert, they all shared in some way how meaningful and rewarding (and fun!) it was to create the show together. I had chats with the audience as they left the hall, some had tears in their eyes, so that heartfelt feeling seemed to have rubbed off. I really loved it.

I've got such an ensemble of such deeply thoughtful, intellectual and interesting people, that I felt it was important to make space for them to talk and share their thoughts and ideas between the music pieces. I like breaking down that performer/audience barrier, so giving my collaborators a moment to step out from the 'ensemble' construct and share how music relates to their own identities - whether it was anti-racism, feminism, First Nations sovereignty, and queer and refugee experiences - felt like a rewarding thing to include in the concert.

VIRAG: Was forming an orchestra and finding like-minded musicians a difficult task? I don't think I'll be the first one to ask; how does one form an orchestra?

MATT: To my shock, no! I really expected it to be a tough, but it felt like a cool heist film montage where the team gets together. I feel really lucky to be surround by such great people, the orchestra members are creative forces in their own right, they have successful bands, run community projects,, lead their own groundbreaking experimental music projects, host radio shows and so much more.

Breaking it down:

- My starting point was drawing from my band The Mouldy Lovers: Canna, Kat, Steph, Jo Sri, Jen and Louis - we've been through everything together from street festivals to Japan tour, it was really great to have that core trust and shared progressive values to build from.

- Courts had interviewed me for her 4ZZZ show Women of Noizzze the week I started my search, and they'd mentioned being a woodwind player, so I invited her to join and she was delighted. Courts lead me to the incredible Yvette and just recently, a new drummer Katie.

- I've known siblings Alice and Fiona for years, our paths crossing all playing in West End bands and Woodford jams for years, so it felt natural to invite them to play horns with me.

- Similarly, I'd been aware of Hannah's incredible experimental work through the local scene, but I'd never gotten a chance to work with her, I'm lucky she said yes. Hannah brought on Jodie, someone I'm surprised I wasn't been aware of, given how exactly in the 'things I love' spot her found object music is.

- I met Andrew at house party at Canna's maybe a year or two ago, found out he teaches brass and had a trunk full of horn instruments, and we ended up playing horn duets by a fire pit in the backyard.

- I was aware of Kaya from her band Salmon & The Peaches and knew that she also payed taiko drums, so that experience across indie and traditional music felt like a perfect complement to my own experiences.

- Maja and I were part of a BEMAC/4EB world music compilation project, so we'd kept in touch as fellow composers. I'd been aware that Fin was an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist, so he was a great fit.

- Flora is a new addition on strings that I met at BrisAsia Festival. We had a great conversation about the music profession and the high expectations Asian parent stereotype. Haha.

- I met Aimee when she attended closing night of The Neighbourhood, she was acquainted with Naavikaran and I found out she played harp and viola. I promised her I'd be in touch when the ensemble eventually got happening, and I did.

- My frequent guests, who are Lucie, Naavikaran, Aurora, Anisa, Cieavash, Nima, apadalia and Blaq Carrie are all artists I've collaborated with before either in past songs or The Neighbourhood.

Also, hopefully being known as someone easy and pleasant to work with had something to do with it!

VIRAG: Tell us a bit about your journey with the arts and music. Were you always creative from a young age?

MATT: I loved visual art a child. When I was 6 I would draw this nighttime forest, again and again. My parents provided a beautiful soundtrack to my childhood art making, film soundtracks, Gershwin, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzegerald, The Carpenters and Taiwanese pop. So I've always loved creating things especially with some relationship to the natural world, and music was always present. I think that lends itself quite nicely to what I do now, making these multi-layered arrangements with natural sounds and acoustic instruments. I even wrote a song about forests called Mycelium which is almost I'm creating that nighttime forest again.

After learning trumpet and drums in school, my biggest 'musical education' was my time with The Mouldy Lovers. It was so really creatively nurturing to be part of a ramshackle folk-punk band where we learned together, figuring out together how music is made and growing naturally from a duo to an 8-piece. Learning how different instruments and personalities cohere, making songs out of nothing, mucking around with each other's instruments, witnessing how melodies are built on a bed of chords or vice versa, and how rhythm completely (re-)shape the feeling and emotion of those notes - that was invaluable. I learnt that music wasn't something you learnt in a classroom, but together with friends, playing and discovering sounds together.

VIRAG: Has it been difficult navigating a career in this industry? What were the major setbacks you experienced?

MATT: I feel like I've been really fortunate with wonderful people supporting me to carve a space for my music. It's thanks to the creative nurturing of BEMAC, 4ZZZ, 4EB, La Boite and The Mouldy Lovers, that Obscure Orchestra has been so welcomed as a part of Brisbane's cultural fabric.

My style of navigating the music industry has been a lot of steady unhurried work and (I think) having the right priorities; like cultivating a great community of collaborators around me and creating music I'm proud of. It never felt particularly realistic or helpful yearning to be snatched up by a buzzy indie-but-actually-major label and becoming an overnight Triple J darling. I've enjoyed doing things at my own pace, carving out a little niche where people who enjoy any combination of experimental/world/alt/folk/hip-hop/lo-fi/dreampop/soul/contemporary-classical/indie/soundtrack music can be pleasantly surprised. All this is literally what the lyrics to my song Make Everything is about. Haha!

I think if there's anything I could consider a 'setback', it's the general de-emphasis of arts support in political spheres. The community-wide setback that musicians who aren't of a certain level of exposure get lost in the cracks and aren't nurtured.

Not so much a setback but a dynamic that amuses me, is that festival/event/gig organisers/gatekeepers don't really know what 'box' to put me in. I'm not strictly an indie artist, nor some 'exotic' world music artist, my ensemble aren't a (single-digit)-piece rock band or jazz ensemble or traditional orchestra. I think people in positions of power in the music industry aren't quite sure what to do with a punk-trained composer performing with a 20-ish piece orchestra. Recently I used the description "like Polyphonic Spree but with people of colour" to get an eventual nod of understanding.

VIRAG: I read that you're currently working with La Boite and artists belonging to First Nations, gender diverse, BIPOC and refugee backgrounds on The Welcome, a brand new digital series about what it means to belong in Australia. As someone who is quite open about your identity and your background, what was it like to share your story on this project?

MATT: I think being with the people of The Neightbourhood/Welcome will be one of the most enduringly impactful and important moments of my life. Building these familial bonds with my co-creators and using the strength of those relationships to speak to a theatre full about diverse identities and shared belonging night after night was pure magic. Now that those stories can take on new life being transposed to a digital series is incredible. I'm so proud to be part of it.

That feeling was actually a core inspiration for how I wanted to run the Obscure Orchestra ensemble, that co-creative trust and making of bonds, and wanting to continue important conversations in music performance.

VIRAG: Lastly, how can we support you and your work?

MATT: All the profits from my music (which release on ethical T-shirts instead of CDs) go to refugee and asylum seeker support organisations: Refugee Solidarity Meanjin, ASRC and RAILS. You can support me, refugees and asylum seekers in one go at my online shop.

Also please support my collaborators! You can find out about the people I work with on my ensemble page. Artists like poet Anisa Nandaula who runs Voices of Colour, rapper Blaq Carrie, musician and Greens councillor Jonathan Sri, multidisciplinary artists Aurora Liddle-Christie and Naavikaran, Courts Lovell who runs the Women of Noise community, Flora Wong's Dots+Loops projec, Sophie Reid-Singers interactive media projects, Lalatuai Grogan and Loopy! e??c?? visual art, Hannah Reardon-Smith and Jodie Rottle's found object and improvisation experiments, apadalia's lo-fi dream pop lo-fi music.

Website Link | https://obscureorchestra.com/

All images courtesy of Matt Hsu's facebook profile.

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