BRIEF CANDLES
"On the last weekend before the cancellations, before the venues shuttered and gathering in a room to experience live music emerged as a threat to public health, I went to a show at Adobe Books in the Mission District of San Francisco. Eight musicians set up on the floor, with mismatched chairs and benches bringing observers within inches of the performers. There was brass and guitar, percussion and strings, and it was intimate enough to hear fingers meet frets. Leading the winsome baroque pop ensemble was Matt Robidoux, a San Francisco composer and improviser steeped in the experimental music community orbiting Mills College. That night at Adobe they were playing material from Robidoux’s latest album, Brief Candles, which evokes the mix of pop and new music created by earlier Mills figures such as “Blue” Gene Tyranny."
—Sam Lefebvre, KQED
"The way Robidoux mixes his improv with actual strong structure gives Brief Candles a cherished ‘infinite number of plays’ status. His involvement with Sunburned Hand of the Man and the underground noise and improv scenes of Massachusetts may have something to do with this. Maybe he’s moving from this background into pure song writing and Brief Candles is the release that finds him midway on his journey. Either way I wish him luck. Anybody that can put a smile on this face at this time of year deserves some support.."
—Idwal Fischer
For three flutes and electric battery fans, viola da gamba and electronics. Performed as part of Shadowbox: Dirt and Copper with Laura Steenberge on February 1, 2020, Space 124 at Project Artaud, San Francisco, CA
Sonifying Differently Structured Possibilities, a multichannel audio performance using EMF sound emitted from the lights in Dana Hemenway’s sculptures as a starting point for processed improvisation. In collaboration with Sally Decker and Mitch Stahlmann, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA, October 5, 2019.
Recorded April 2019 by Eclipse Quartet:
Sarah Thornblade, Sara Parkins,
Alma Lisa Fernandez, Maggie Parkins.
"Irish Collection (2017) and Irish Need Not Apply (2019)
are vulnerable and honest excavations...by mining Irish and
Irish-American cultural exports for source material—alternately
connecting himself to his heritage and distancing himself
from it—Robidoux traces the shaky line between pride and insularity,
oppressed and oppressor."
—Leah B. Levinson, Post Trash