Molto Ohm: FEED

Weekly Listening: January 2025 #2

Molto Ohm – Sponsored #1

Molto Ohm is the new project from Italy-born, Brooklyn-based artist and composer Matteo Liberatore which examines the contemporary moment—where the rise of digital connection seems inversely proportional to relations within the physical world, and the fabric of society is changing if not disintegrating altogether. The electronic sound combines dance beats and shimmering melodies with vocal samples and environmental sounds, leading to something ostensibly intimate but ultimately alienating in its synthetic form. Ahead of debut album FEED on New Focus Recordings, single ‘Sponsored #1’ introduces the style. A track which “delves into the commodification of self-care,” as Liberatore describes, “where the quest for mental well-being is shaped by algorithms and consumer-driven promises of a better you.”

— Jon Doyle, 1.21.2025

Matteo Liberatore, an artist and composer who has become a fixture in New York City’s experimental and intermedia art scenes over the last decade, today announces the debut album from his audio-visual electronic music alias Molto Ohm. After introducing the project with live performances at DIY spaces, art venues, and music clubs—often collaborating in duos with artists like Taja Cheek (L’Rain), More Eaze, and Ka Baird—Liberatore is set to release FEED on March 21 via New Focus Recordings.

On the work, Molto Ohm presents his thesis: “FEED aims to capture the fragmentation and alienation of modern life, an exploration of ambition, consumerism, purpose, intimacy, and self-awareness, juxtaposed with a longing for calm, joy, and human connection.”

Alongside the album announcement, Liberatore is sharing the project’s first-ever released track, “Sponsored #1,” which serves as a captivating entry point into Molto Ohm’s idiosyncratic and concept-driven world. The lead single delves into the commodification of self-care, where the quest for mental well-being is shaped by algorithms and consumer-driven promises of a better you. Beginning as a blissful electronic track overlaid with a voice that sounds dialed in from a meditation or self-help app, the track shifts into uncanny territory, magnified by Liberatore’s video, which splices together footage of faux advertisements for a dentist along with shots of smiling individuals and an unsettling last 20 seconds.

— Neill Frazer, 1.26.2025

Exploring Digital Life: Molto Ohm’s “Sponsored #1”

Molto Ohm’s Sponsored #1 is a striking blend of fast-paced synth arpeggios and spoken word elements that create a meditative yet futuristic atmosphere. The track’s retro-inspired synth melodies pair with a modern, reflective narrative, offering a sonic exploration of the commodification of self-care and the tension between consumer-driven promises and authentic well-being.

As the lead single from Molto Ohm’s debut album, FEED, Sponsored #1 encapsulates the project’s broader themes of consumerism, overstimulation, and human connection in the digital age. Matteo Liberatore, the creative force behind Molto Ohm, draws on his extensive background in improvised music, sound recording, and nightclub culture to construct a layered auditory experience that is at once alienating and deeply personal.

Liberatore’s multifaceted approach to the music extends into his live performances, where visuals play a central role. Accompanied by vertical screen projections of screen recordings, stock footage, and 360-degree visuals, Molto Ohm creates an immersive space where sound and imagery converge, leaving the audience captivated, disoriented, and reflective.

Since starting live performances in 2023, Molto Ohm has built a reputation for blending electronic experimentation with emotional depth. With commissions from organizations like Composers Now and Metropolis Ensemble, and collaborations with artists such as L’Rain’s Taja Cheek and Ka Baird, Molto Ohm is carving out a unique space in the intersection of electronic music and contemporary art.

— Matt, 1.27.2025

Matteo Liberatore, an artist and composer who has become a fixture in New York City’s experimental and intermedia art scenes over the last decade, today announces the debut album from his audio-visual electronic music alias Molto Ohm. After introducing the project with live performances at DIY spaces, art venues, and music clubs—often collaborating in duos with artists like Taja Cheek (L’Rain), More Eaze, and Ka Baird—Liberatore is set to release FEED on March 21 via New Focus Recordings.

On the work, Molto Ohm presents his thesis: “FEED aims to capture the fragmentation and alienation of modern life, an exploration of ambition, consumerism, purpose, intimacy, and self-awareness, juxtaposed with a longing for calm, joy, and human connection.”

Alongside the album announcement, Liberatore is sharing the project’s first-ever released track, “Sponsored #1,”which serves as a captivating entry point into Molto Ohm’s idiosyncratic and concept-driven world. The lead single delves into the commodification of self-care, where the quest for mental well-being is shaped by algorithms and consumer-driven promises of a better you. Beginning as a blissful electronic track overlaid with a voice that sounds dialed in from a meditation or self-help app, the track shifts into uncanny territory, magnified by Liberatore’s video, which splices together footage of faux advertisements for a dentist along with shots of smiling individuals and an unsettling last 20 seconds.

In FEED, Molto Ohm urges us to confront how capitalism’s relentless drive to commodify everything has left many subjugated by the promises of an unattainable life. Advertising, consumer technology, and the culture of self-optimization dangle visions of happiness, peace, and prosperity. Deep down, we know that these promises are often hollow, designed to sustain an economy where alienation and dissatisfaction drive consumption. Yet, the pull remains powerful, leaving many feeling estranged from themselves and their world.

FEED examines the battles between material comfort and bodily alienation; ecstasy and ennui; engagement and weariness by recontextualizing familiar signifiers: heavy dance beats, glitchy effects, connection static, motivational speeches, sales pitches, podcast-like confessions, and (faux) ads. The sonics span EDM and abstraction; snippets of yearning songs flash by, and dissonance interrupts lulls. Commanding synths shimmer and stab, while wavy melodies offset the tension. Wistfulness is ever-present, Liberatore conveying that something is being lost. The music looking to a new paradigm.

As an immigrant that moved to New York from a small village in central Italy, Liberatore experienced the cultural shift of transitioning from a stereotypically quiet and idyllic place to the world capital of art and capitalism. After more than a decade in New York and the absorption in the experimental music world (with albums and countless collaborations with Mark Kelley, Elliott Sharp, Taja Cheek, Gold Dime, Amirtha Kidambi, Ava Mendoza, Brian Chase and many more), Liberatore felt the urge to come to terms with his hybrid existence, reconnect to his lost teenage years overseas, the love of Italian pop music, 90s Eurodance nostalgia, small manual cars, the waveless Adriatic sea, and to make sense of this constant feeling of unrest and race towards an elusive, imagined destination.

Liberatore anchors FEED’s production in a loud, contemporary style that marries hyperpop energy and festival friendliness, complicating it with atonal timbres, environmental sounds, and human voices. The music morphs and shifts. The quiet moments are brief and artificial; soulful warmth flickers; noise bursts through, disrupting the transmission. Maybe we can still push back against the corporate machine and retain a hint of autonomy, imperfection, and organic beauty. The inclusion of a Mark Fisher quote in track nine, “After All (Mark)” is fitting. “After all, what could be more shattering, unassimilable, and incomprehensible, in our hyper stressed, constantly disappointing and overstimulated lives, than the sensation of calm joy.” Like the critic-turned-theorist, Liberatore confronts shattering and incomprehensible dread in our overstimulated lives, where even “calm joy” has been heavily commodified and sold to the willing bidder, leaving no escape for the soul.

Keep your mind open.

— Nik Havert, 2.01.2025

Questa è l’elettronica che ci piace: belle tastiere, un ritmo che prende per mano l’ascoltatore e continue accelerazioni e frenate. “The Party” è una canzone che inizia subito forte, ma attenzione alla seconda parte: ci sono un sacco di sorprese inattese!

This is the electronics we like: nice keyboards, a rhythm that takes the listener by the hand and continuous accelerations and brakes. “The Party” is a song that starts strong right away, but beware of the second part: there are lots of unexpected surprises!

— Redazione, 2.17.2025

Molto Ohm presenta ‘The Party’: De la fiesta EDM a la reflexión abstracta sobre el caos digital (EE.UU.)

El proyecto audiovisual estadounidense Molto Ohm presenta el sencillo «The Party», una canción que brilla por la experimentación como protagonista dentro de su personalidad musical. El track inicia con un sonido dinámico, energético, accesible y amigable, típico de las fiestas electrónicas, ejemplificado de forma brillante en el video de la canción con imágenes de festivales y celebraciones. Esta primera parte captura la esencia de la diversión y el movimiento, invitando a los oyentes a sumergirse en un ambiente festivo y vibrante.

En la segunda mitad de la pista, el proyecto construye una narrativa más reflexiva, introspectiva y abstracta, alimentada en el video por imágenes del caos de las redes sociales y las aplicaciones. Esta transición de lo divertido y dinámico a lo denso y introspectivo crea una interesante dualidad que invita a la reflexión sobre el impacto de la tecnología en nuestras vidas. Cabe destacar que este track será parte de su material «FEED», un trabajo que promete explorar temas contemporáneos con un enfoque audaz y experimental. Sin duda, «The Party» es una muestra del talento de Molto Ohm para fusionar lo visual con lo musical, creando una experiencia que trasciende lo convencional.

yuxtapone impresiones de festivales de EDM (primera mitad) y música abstracta asombrosa (segunda mitad) encima de un vídeo musical de detritus digitales

El nuevo proyecto de Matteo Liberatore, Molto Ohm, es una exploración sonora y visual de la interacción entre la vida digital y la decadencia social a nivel emocional. En el atractivo mundo digital de hoy, somos meros usuarios a quienes se les promete salud, belleza, amor y conexión. ¿Pero a qué costo? Al final, nos encontramos solos, sin propósito pero todavía desplazándonos sin pensar, tirando furtivamente de un panel de vidrio, incapaces de atravesarlo.

English version:

«Molto Ohm’s ‘The Party’: A Duality of EDM Festivity and Abstract Reflection on Digital Chaos (USA)

The American audiovisual project Molto Ohm presents the single «The Party,» a song that shines with experimentation as the protagonist of its musical personality. The track begins with a dynamic, energetic, accessible, and friendly sound, typical of electronic parties, brilliantly exemplified in the song’s video with footage of festivals and celebrations. This first part captures the essence of fun and movement, inviting listeners to immerse themselves in a festive and vibrant atmosphere.

In the second half of the track, the project builds a more reflective, introspective, and abstract narrative, fueled in the video by images of the chaos of social media and apps. This transition from the fun and dynamic to the dense and introspective creates an interesting duality that invites reflection on the impact of technology on our lives. It’s worth noting that this track will be part of their material «FEED,» a work that promises to explore contemporary themes with a bold and experimental approach. Without a doubt, «The Party» is a testament to Molto Ohm’s talent for merging the visual with the musical, creating an experience that transcends the conventional.

juxtaposes EDM festival impressions (first half) and uncanny abstract music (second half) atop a music video of digital detritus

Matteo Liberatore’s new project Molto Ohm is a sonic and visual exploration of the interplay between digital life and social decay on an emotional level. In today’s alluring digital world, we are merely users, to whom health, beauty, love, and connection are promised. But at what cost? In the end, we find ourselves alone, void of purpose yet still mindlessly scrolling, pulling furtively on a pane of glass, unable to break through.

— R+, 2.19.2025

https://www.expansionradial.mx/molto-ohm-the-party-electronic/

— Oliver Zurita, 2.20.2025

Molto Ohm’s The Party plays like an overstimulated fever dream, a digital funhouse where euphoria and unease collide. The first half pulses with EDM festival energy—big, synthetic beats driving forward like neon strobes in a haze of dopamine hits. Then, the floor drops. The second half dissolves into uncanny, abstract textures, twisting familiar soundscapes into something warped and disorienting. It’s an exploration of modern overstimulation, consumerism, and the search for something real amid the noise.

A dissonant, hypnotic soundtrack for the scrolling generation.

— Last Day Deaf, 2.25.2025

Matteo Liberatore’s new project, Molto Ohm, is a sonic and visual exploration of the fragmentation and alienation of modern life.

Through a juxtaposition of sporadic dance beats, seductive voices, synthetic melodies, and environmental sounds, the music captures the tension between consumerism, commodification, anxiety, and affect regulation, along with a deep yearning for calm, joy, and human connection.

This mix paints an emotional and aesthetic portrait of some of the music that inspired him over the years up until recent days in the ongoing making of Molto Ohm music.

— Dublab, 3.15.2025

Molto Ohm‘s FEED is a commentary on modern existence, a sonic play that includes beats, samples and stuttered narrative. The album uses technology to comment on technology, a curious conundrum.

— postrockcafe, 3.18.2025

Matteo Liberatore is a force of chaos and precision. His new alter ego, Molto Ohm, is as unexpected as it is electrifying—an immersive plunge into maximalist soundscapes that teeter on the edge of controlled madness. Melodies are shattered and reassembled into frenetic journeys through blacked-out neon corridors lined with jagged edges and fractured dreams. A fusion of instrumentation, voices, environmental recordings, and relentless rhythms crafts a serrated portrait of modern existence.

FEED unfolds in multiple dimensions, shifting from cryptic, ethereal opacity to stark, unfiltered transmissions wrapped in electronic fervor. Liberatore is the puppet master, orchestrating disparate elements into a feverish, unpredictable sonic narrative where the impossible becomes inevitable. It’s audacious, urgent, and brilliant; music for an age on the brink.

Are You Making Money?

I occasionally record audio for video shoots. I’ve been doing it for more than a decade. I became introduced to the work in 2012 by helping a roommate shoot a documentary. Alongside my work in music and teaching, it has been a huge help in paying for life in New York.

The content of the shoots varies greatly: documentaries, TV shows, fashion exhibits, editorials for magazines, newspapers, you name it. I've been to places I would never have seen otherwise: a death row prison, a Peruvian desert, a food facility in Detroit, car factories, Ice-T’s house, New York homes with millions of dollars worth of art on the walls. I've recorded hundreds of people talking about all kinds of subjects. It has allowed me to witness worlds that feel very distant from mine, as well as learn the technical intricacies of video and film production up close.

Several years ago I was recording a white-collar executive reading from a teleprompter. He read the lines over and over, self-consciously laughing and asking for approval from his interns. The language was numbing but oddly fascinating to me. How could something sound so flat and impersonal—in other words, so corporate? Upon returning home I layered the repeating lines over a fast, manic beat, and the mental cogs clicked into place; I realized I needed to develop these sonic explorations. Once the whole album was done, I went back and reworked this track. A friend and I searched for and recorded the most tedious speeches we could find from banks, investment companies, and real estate websites.

I wanted to stack the speeches as the track progressed, moving the listener’s attention from the meaning of the words to the sound and tone of the speaker and eventually to the cacophony of the speeches. At the end of the day, the bland sameness of the speeches belies a simple but powerful message: money is everything.

I am aware that starting the album this way might be disconcerting (some friends told me they heard the track and initially thought it was a Soundcloud ad, waiting for it to end before the ‘real’ music started), but I wanted to draw attention to the pervasiveness of advertising and corporate influence. We’re so accustomed to ads that we barely pay attention to them on a conscious level —yet they affect us in very significant ways. Think of the constant, unwanted pollution, on the subway, on the street, on social media, on any free app, on the radio, on YouTube, and so on.

$$$$$$

I grew up in Abruzzo, in central Italy, in a stereotypically Catholic Italian family. I often heard choirs in churches and Gregorian chants out of my parents' home speakers. I remember their CDs and records, including the ones of celebrated Italian singers. Through these early sonic experiences, I developed an appreciation for the human voice. For this track, I made a sample of my own voice and layered it with a synth sound to create a syncopated synth/choir rhythm: stabs of mysterious chords opening up into a sort of faux-EDM breakdown. I wanted to set the electronic-beat tone of the album right away. The track was also inspired by The Swingle Sisters singing Bach, which I heard as a teenager and thought was unbelievable.

The voice in my song that says "You smell so good," is me. One of my favorite elements in electronic music is talking voices. The lyrics are an unintended homage to Your Only Friend by Phuture; I wasn’t familiar with the song until recently, or perhaps I had heard it when I was younger and don’t remember. That song goes: “This is cocaine speaking, I can make you do anything for me, I can make you cry for me, I can make you fight for me, I can make you steal for me, I can make you kill for me.” Mine says: “You smell so good, I want you, I need you.” You can apply these lyrics to any subject, but the track’s title $$$$$$ (as well as the previous track’s title) suggests it’s about money: everyone’s drug.

Were You Dreaming Yesterday?

This track starts with a recording from another film shoot, this time an interview with a graphic designer. I’ve always felt that adding a vocoder makes anything sound more poetic. I loved the effect of it on this particular speech—it sounds hopeful and promising. I thought of this track as a collage, the sonic analogue of someone moving from one IG post to another. The noise that follows the speech feels like an abrupt return to reality, raw and unsettling. And what better way to ease the pain of that return than what sounds like a jazz-inflected yoga session? The voice (mine, pitched up) says:

“Three, four, let’s do one more, on the other side

Inhale to extend, beautiful work

Take the wrists, planting the palms

Spread the fingers, one, two, three

Big breath...

Exhale, lift up, downward dog, dog, downward dog

Bend your knees

Tik Tok the hips, the hips, the hips, the hips

Feel the lengthening.”

Sponsored #1

This track is about the commodification of self-care, where the quest for mental well-being is shaped by algorithms and consumer-driven promises of a “better you.”

I’ve had this track (without vocals) since 2015. At the time, I was obsessing over an Access Virus C synthesizer, (which I later sold, bought again, and then used on this record). I was playing around with its arpeggiator and thought, what if I play arpeggios on the keyboard while a super-fast arpeggiator is on?! I ended up with an ultra-lush, wide bed of beautiful chords—nostalgic and melancholic—and a synth choir patch singing a soaring melody toward the end. At the time, I thought I would never use it, thinking it was “too beautiful.” Then Molto Ohm came around, and this track begged to be used as a faux ad for a meditation app. In fact, the “lyrics” are inspired by the questionnaire from the Calm app, a real meditation app. The voice is me again, this time not pitched. I was incredibly happy that this instrumental track was finally put to use—another reminder to never delete anything off your hard drives!

Legend

The inspirations for this track were the strange, atonal sounds from a Hydrasynth desktop synth and audio from a video shoot in which I recorded an interviewer asking people if they cared about brand ethicality.

I recorded a friend of mine who has a low, deep voice (I pitched it down even more) asking a series of questions about brands, while a messy and inconsistent beat rampages along with atonal chords, and a sample of an activist journalist clashes with the brand content.

The track is replete with digital glitch. The moodboard: Johnny Mnemonic, Neptune Frost, Blindsight, early 90s jungle, hardcore beats, the idea of the world as an information network, the immorality of capitalism, the irony of corporate responsibility.

Code 11 (Myst)

Noise and bits of melodic songs: the chorus that suffuses my neighborhood in New York when I go to and from the supermarket, the gym, the barbershop. I love walking in and out of places and hearing how the soundscape changes within a few feet, strolling past a restaurant or a nail salon and hearing the song inside, the sound of people and machines outside, and just for a moment imagining the lives of those listening, the world bursting, life everywhere. But this joy is brief; the end of the track is abrupt and the silence afterward is almost unbearable.

A Place Far Away

This track exudes pure longing. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was longing for, but when I started naming cities into the microphone, it all made sense. Longing for travel, for the faraway destinations we symbolically project our happiness and dreams onto. I thought of pre-internet brochures from travel agencies, my own travels back to my Italian hometown village, and my journey to New York. The idea of escaping or starting anew, ad agencies creating perfect images to place on highway billboards, designed to make you hate your current, limited life.

I inserted bursts of noise to counteract the disaffected nightmare. The synth pad sound is cold and shiny, as digital as it gets. The moodboard: ambient music, Vanilla Sky, The Handmaid’s Tale, the last chapter of 1984, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the rainbow flag on the Bank of America window.

My obsession with pitched voices is again on clear display…

The Party

I was thinking of the party scene in Paolo Sorrentino’s movie The Great Beauty, my teenage self at the club in Italy, ‘90s Eurodance, seeing Tiesto live in Brooklyn. Dancing, decadence, aging, commercialism, ritual. Dancing can have dozens of meanings and symbolism.

In the context of this album, dance represents a desperate escape, a resistance: to time, to the machine that controls us, to capital, to institutional power. I wanted to contrast a dark, driving strain of uncanny EDM in the first half with deconstructed, abstract minimalism in the second. It’s a dance track as well as a commentary on a dance track. The pitched voice is mine, mumbling mostly nonsense plus an Italian phrase that says, “It destroys it all, and it’ll always be there.” I wanted the beat to hit hard and the glitch to disrupt, the melody to be catchy and assertive, and the second section to be yearning, reaching for something, and then the beat coming back, fragmented.

After All (Mark)

I had an FM synth called Mega FM that I used a lot on the album; it’s an incredibly creative machine. I made a beautiful tremolo pad sound and recorded it as a one-take improvisation on a keyboard. I don’t “play” keyboard, but sometimes I pick a scale (often C major so I only need to hit the white keys) and randomly play chords on it. I come up with all sorts of unexpected tonal chord progressions and melodies that way. I’m a trained guitarist, but I enjoy playing other instruments I’m less familiar with to keep my ears fresh.

The quote in this track is from Mark Fisher’s book Ghosts of My Life. When I wrote FEED, Mark’s writing in that book and Capitalist Realism resonated with me. How can we even imagine a life beyond capitalism? We feel trapped in this never-ending present, a present that feels like the end of history.

The phone ringing throughout the track is a heavy-handed metaphor, but in our current moment, I would say nuance is out the window…

Are You Beautiful?

A while ago, I improvised a track taking inspiration from Morton Feldman's piano pieces—sustain pedal down; slow, atonal chords resonating. Feldman used to say that he would write a chord, forget about it, and then write another. I love that idea.

I didn’t know what to do with the piece until I prompted a friend to talk about inner beauty and self-care. I agreed with all the things she described; they sounded genuine and authentic, but once I put her voice over the piano piece and added street noise, breathing sounds, and other artifacts, the feeling shifted. When I heard it in that capacity, I thought of the beauty industry, endless TikTok videos, meditation apps, personal trainers, the wellness industrial complex. My friend’s voice became the desperate voice of an ultra-materialistic era. If we are well-optimized and healthy, we can produce more. Yoga retreats for CEOs, corporate meditation, the high price of clean and healthy foods. Everything “good” has a price.

Growth

This is another track that starts with a “keyboard” improvisation I made, this one using MIDI pads tuned to a fixed scale. In the background, you can hear a sample of a voice from an interview that I cut and spread across the stereo field. You can’t make out any of the words other than “marketing” at one point; that word rising to the surface wasn’t chosen by me, it happened by chance…

The sample of my sink water running and a low, inconstant kick drum beat add a sense of intimacy and mystery to the track. The intimacy is further enhanced by the song sample that comes after. I wrote it with my first band, right after college; they were happy to let me use the sample. The song is called Westcliff Washeteria. It has a whimsical quality and is a bit nostalgic; Fellini comes to mind. It felt right to close the album with it. Intimacy is a mess in the globalized tech era. The more technology targets us atomically—individualizing every single experience we have, making us feel that the machines know us—the more we lose intimacy with the people closest to us, with concepts of community, the local, the particular. Imperfect people are replaced by ideals of perfect partners on dating profiles. Images, to paraphrase Marc Augé, possess a power far in excess of any objective information they carry.

— Brad Rose, 3.20.2025

The debut album from the electronic-collage project of unclassifiable guitar adventurer Matteo Liberatore, FEED is your invitation to the rave where you dance on the bones of late capitalism while the DJ tries to sell you investment advice. Somewhere between Laurie Anderson and 100 Gecs, FEED will have you begging for molto Molto Ohm.

— Jeremy Shatan, 3.21.2025

Bandcamp Picks of the Week 3/21/2025

Molto Ohm – FEED

Genre: Experimental Electronic, Hypnagogic Pop

Favorite Tracks: “$$$$$$,” “Sponsored #1,” “A Place Far Away,” “11 Growth”

Inessential goods and promises are rampant in society and the digital realm. Today’s web is littered with inconsequential and consumerist content we see as we endlessly scroll, hoping to be jolted by another dopamine hit, but it never comes. There’s a sinking feeling from doom-scrolling on any towering social platform once you realize that time is spent unproductively. Misspent time from being fed false promises of finding love, connection, and motivation through the digital world—Matteo Liberatore’s newest audiovisual project, Molto Ohm, interrogates these gripping notions in spirit.

Liberatore is a sound collagist at heart, whose affecting palette encompasses careful acoustic rhythms and atonal electronic music. FEED, his latest series of musical experiments exploring the interrelation between digital life and social decay, sits in the latter sonic camp. You’d have no idea his unfiltered, finger-plucking improvisation on his 2018 LP SOLOS could lend itself to the metallic, belligerent kicks that anchor FEED. It’s likely Liberatore’s move from Abruzzo, Italy to Brooklyn, New York that did it—his rustic, classical background has been deftly polished upon his traversing into the American city’s experimental music scenes.

FEED is James Ferraro-esque with samples of faux advertisements and conversations (“Are You Making Money,” “Were You Dreaming Yesterday,” “Legend”) cushioning the album’s lengthier, near-hyperpop tracks. Even Ferraro’s examination of consumerism and technology’s unnatural fashion speaks broadly to the Molto Ohm project. The dichotomy of sparsity and repetition also resembles forward-thinking electronic composer Carl Stone. Given Liberatore can interact with layering and lulling in this dignified way, FEED is truly another crowning achievement in his ever-increasing list of artistic works.

Glitchy beats and modular synths dominate the upbeat club-heavy tracks, like the skittery “$$$$$$” and flickering coda across “Sponsored #1,” the latter calling upon the reader to recognize their emotions and stress by keeping tabs, like how social media always does. The unsettling dial tones in “Legend” are accompanied by words probing on brand trust: “Our brand’s an extension of your personal identity. How much value do you place on a brand’s stable initiatives? Do you feel the brands you support represent you and your values?” The stark musical changes are as sudden as how today more people trust individuals than ever as brands.

The discomfort from confronting digital realities is best outlined on “A Place Far Away,” a MIDI-like beat interrupted by coastal swooshing and electronic distortion. It’s Ferraro’s FAR SIDE VIRTUAL with a potent, unshakeable unease. Closer “11 Growth” extends this, where what beats precede the prior tracks are substituted for gorgeous piano embellishments amidst folk samples. There’s a harrowing disconnect, like looking at life through glass screens, being our phones. Looking into a fabricated reality with false promises, doesn’t much of the internet yield such a thing?

Liberatore’s inquiries require much more extensive parsing to appreciate them properly. However, his profoundly alienating and intimate confrontation with the modern digital realm is ambitious no matter how you listen. Experience FEED, Molto Ohm’s stimulating examination of digital life, over on Bandcamp.

— Dom Lepore, 3.21.2025

Matteo Liberatore (aka Molto Ohm) about the Magic of Sound(s)

Is every sound we hear loaded with associations with our past? On the first album of his new project – a collage of beats, sequences, personal messages and blocks of sound - Matteo Liberatore is determined to find out.

“Sounds are just sounds. It’s culture and circumstances that assign them meaning based on who and what is producing them.”

Name: Matteo Liberatore aka Molto Ohm
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: Composer, guitarist, improviser, performer, sound artist
Recent release: Molto Ohm's debut album FEED is out March 21st 2025 via New Focus.
Recommendations on the topic of sound:
Noise / Music: A History by Paul Hegarty
Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music by Alvin Lucier

Part 1

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

When I listen to noise music or attend a rave, there are moments when the experience transcends listening and becomes purely physical. Consciousness is finally disengaged, and the body takes over. When this happens I often feel sheer excitement.

I occasionally host small listening parties at my apartment with friends. Listening to music with other like-minded people can make me feel so ecstatic that I can barely sit still. The same thing can happen when I go to live shows. Sometimes, the music is so good that I turn to my friends and we nod in shared awe.

I listen with my eyes open. I mostly meditate this way, too. When your mind is clear, objects and colors appear brighter, more vivid and ‘reality’ feels closer, more real. The act of seeing is directly influenced by how ‘present’ your mind is and I use it as a tool to assess my emotional state.

Reality often looks dim compared to the hyper-detailed brightness of 4K TV screens, but with practice, we can catch glimpses of that kind of vision ourselves. Lev Manovich suggests that digital, synthetic images are realistic representations of human vision in the future when it will be augmented by computer graphics and cleansed of noise.

I like to think of it differently: these digital images could be humanity’s attempt to replicate those fleeting moments of bliss we rarely experience in everyday life—moments of love, peace, or profound connection. They’re an effort to recreate the clarity and sharpness we’ve felt in our most alive and present states, which literally enhances our vision.

I remember reading a book about meditation years ago, and someone in the book mentioned how the tree outside their window looked greener after meditation. I thought it was an absurd statement until I experienced it myself.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

When I’m listening to heady electronic music alone at home, I usually reach for headphones. They allow me to focus on the minutiae—the textures, the ambience, the layers of sound—on an almost atomic level. The electricity and artificiality of electronic sounds pair well with the isolated environment that headphones create. It feels like a solitary, personal experience.

However, there’s a lot you can miss with headphones. Sometimes, I get so absorbed in the details that I lose sight of the bigger picture; speakers are much better for that. They also open up the possibility of shared experiences, which, as I mentioned earlier, can be incredibly powerful.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

A few albums that stuck with me from the past 2-3 years:

Criss-Cross / Hanover by Alvin Lucier
The simplicity and directness of these two Alvin Lucier pieces is extraordinary, they say so much with so little. And the recording is immaculate.

im hole by aya
aya’s debut album is incredible. The vibe, the compositions, the textures, the depth of the sounds.

Signs by Gerald Cleaver
Gerald Cleaver might be best known for his career as a top jazz drummer but this debut as electronic musician and composer floored me. The sound world he created is special.

[Read our Gerald Cleaver interview about modular synthesis]

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

Absolutely. Sound, filtered through our brain, becomes memory, emotion.

To illustrate: the sound of a Yamaha DX7 electric piano patch, or its iconic bass patch, move me, likely because I was born in the ’80s. The sound of a choir gives me goosebumps. I grew up in Italy, my dad listening to Gregorian chants, a church choir in the distance on a Sunday morning, Pavarotti through the home speakers, the memory of a life I don’t live anymore.

In other words, it evokes nostalgia. Much of our emotional response to sound is rooted in nostalgia and memory. Would I like the DX7 piano patch if I didn’t have such strong unconscious memories of it? Would I have ever been drawn to that FM bass patch if Giorgio Moroder hadn’t composed “Take My Breath Away” in 1986? Probably not.

Sounds of nature, on the other hand, can evoke comforting feelings, dreams of escape, and intimacy with oneself. When I hear a plane overhead, I think of travel, freedom, and all the possibilities that come with it—a pleasant feeling, albeit one that’s probably been implanted in me by advertising. When I hear a moped down the street, I’m transported back to my teenage years, zipping around my small town in Abruzzo.

At this point, it’s hard to know if there’s any sound that isn’t laden with associations. I explore these themes in my project Molto Ohm, especially related to our modern sonic landscapes.

Apart from associations with memory and feeling, there’s another way to experience sound, one that aligns more with Zen and the work of Pauline Oliveros and John Cage.

When I do a meditation focused on sound, there are fleeting moments in which listening transforms into something else entirely—an immediate hearing, a complete, effortless awareness, as if sound bypasses the brain’s processing and reaches my body directly, existing beyond cultural conditioning, taste, expectation, memory, meaning.

In those rare instances (which sometimes reappear throughout the day), sounds, for lack of a better word, touch me. I feel them almost physically on my skin, poking me. I don’t hear their cultural value or what they’re meant to signify. They are just waves, hitting my body ever so gently. I don’t reach for them—they come to me.

The first few times this happened to me, I teared up. It felt like touching the bedrock of reality.

[Read our Pauline Oliveros interview]

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

Aside from certain loud or high frequency sounds that can cause harm and require protection (and are used as a weapon by the police and the military in sonic warfare), sounds are usually not irritating to me per se. I apply the irritation to the sound.

I often use sound as a window into my own feelings. For example, my downstairs neighbor is a drummer. Some days, his playing irritates me. Other days, I don’t even notice it. When I do find it irritating, I ask myself: Why is this sound bothering me today? Or, more accurately: This sound is irritating me today, so I must be irritated already. It’s a way of acknowledging that my inner being isn’t at peace in that moment.

I’m very sensitive to this dynamic. Sounds are just sounds. It’s culture and circumstances that assign them meaning based on who and what is producing them.

My girlfriend lives on a busy street in Brooklyn, where people blast songs all the time. One day she came up with the idea of making a compilation called “Songs of Bedford Ave”, which would include all the songs she heard outside her window. A wonderful idea: reconfiguring the occasional music blast not as a cause for annoyance but as a way to create a sonic memory of a place.

Another good example: city noise videos on YouTube. The comments reveal people describing how comforting they find the sound of the city—the bustling streets, the distant hum of life heard from the coziness of their bedroom. It makes them feel less alone.

But if you’re standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan on a Tuesday morning, you probably won’t feel the same way. Why is that? Is it just the volume level? Or is it also because you’re walking to work, dreading a presentation, dealing with a shitty boss, the sounds amplifying your internal turmoil?

I’m not denying that environments can be too loud and overstimulating. Noise pollution (more precisely the sheer quantity and volume of sound sources emitting noise all at once) is a problem in big cities, and even the most mindful person will be affected by it.

But I believe there are meditations we can do to mitigate its impact. Without the means to escape the city every weekend, learning to live within the chaos has become a necessity for many of us.

Part 2

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

Although I don’t explore physical space phenomena in my music, I’m very aware of how a space sounds from my side job recording audio for film and video. Over time, my ears have become tuned to assess whether an environment is suitable for a clean voice recording. Much of this comes down to evaluating the reverberation in the space.

One space that intrigues me acoustically is the American school gym. The bouncing of a basketball, voices resonating, the scraping of sneakers on polished wood floors. Thank you for that Hollywood!

Airports are sonically fascinating as well. A myriad of sounds at a very low volume level …

What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

The vast majority of my music is recorded at home. I don’t have the financial means to book extended studio time, nor do I really need to, since so much of what I make is electronic nowadays. Would I have made the same kind of music had I lived in the suburbs with a big studio basement?

When it comes to performing, I’ve been fortunate to play in a variety of venues. I don’t know if I have a favorite per se as I tend to focus more on the people that are present and how the audience’s energy can shape the performing experience.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

Absolutely. When I work with prepared guitar, the best way I can describe the process is that it’s like carving. I scrape, hit, drag the guitar, I bow it, I pluck it, I bend the strings. Sound and its material production become one. I create sound out of non-sound, out of the collision of matter.

My first solo album, Solos, is an exploration of this approach.
Solos by Matteo Liberatore

When I work with synthesizers, on the other hand, I’m modifying an already existing signal. In this case, it feels more like shaping. I become an observer and listener as much as a creator (Alvin Lucier talked about this).

Electricity, as Lev Manovich argues in The Language of New Media (page 126), fundamentally changed how we think about art and artistry. The artist is no longer a romantic genius conjuring a new world purely from their imagination. The artist becomes a technician, an accessory to the machine.

I surely felt that way when making my second solo album Lacquer.
LACQUER by Matteo Liberatore

I made the album as much as I listened to the synthesizer making it. All I did was turning a bunch of knobs, recording the more interesting parts, cataloguing them, and layering them later. I was inspired by the machine’s capabilities, which were, in turn, shaped by the people who designed it.

Some might argue that I could have used a different synthesizer and made a similar album. But I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have conceived of an album like Lacquer had I not bought that particular instrument.

My current work with Molto Ohm touches on both elements in a broader sense. I am no longer working with single sounds (whether I carve or shape them); I am now working with blocks of sonic information. I am collaging a sound world made of everyday sounds I record, songs or synth sounds I make, voicemails I hear, text I translate into voice overs, samples of my old music.

A more apt description would be that I am arranging, or even better, that I am assembling music.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

I don’t like the sound of ocean waves. I find their loud, all-encompassing roar overwhelming. Most people love it, so I’m interested in understanding the possible reasons why I don’t.

The best explanation I’ve come up with is that it’s not my sea. I grew up near the Adriatic. It’s calm and flat it’s like a sheet of glass. Its waves are barely there. The sound they make is so gentle. It reminds me of home, of my Italian family, and also of all the years I’ve chosen to spend in America instead of Italy.

When I go back home, I visit the Adriatic. I sit on the beach near the water, I hear the small, gentle waves, their delicate, bubbly sound, and I weep.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

Yes, I always carry earplugs—they’re attached to my keychain. I wear them at every live show, and sometimes even in loud bars. Depending on the volume, I’ll push them in deeper or keep them just barely in, but they’re always there, ready to be used.

I do my best to protect my ears from prolonged exposure to excessive loudness. The thought of damaging my hearing terrifies me.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

As much as I believe that it’s possible to find some sonic peace in a chaotic environment, I won’t deny that it’s much easier in a quiet one. Not too quiet though: if you’re in a truly silent place, the sound of your own brain can be deafening! (On that note, I’ve realized not everyone is aware of the sound their brain makes.)

I appreciate quietness, or rather, I appreciate being in environments where it’s easier to discern the sounds around you because there aren’t many of them. For me, this usually happens if I am home at night or early in the morning. Right now, for example, it’s 10:40 p.m. I hear my radiator gently hissing, the faint hum of street noise outside, the tapping of my keyboard, the occasional distant airplane.

I’m surrounded by sound every moment of the day whether I want it or not. The delight lies in being able to hear those sounds, whatever they are, and welcome them as the only reality I can experience in that particular moment.

Of course, if by “sound” we mean music, that’s a different story. I don't often listen to music while doing other activities (unless I am dancing). I usually make time to sit down and listen.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

I believe hearing is the most immediate sense for connecting with reality. If we all practiced sound meditations more often, I think we’d live better, less stressful lives.

— Tobias Fischer, 3.26.2025

Molto Ohm unveils the second single and music video, “The Party,” ahead of the forthcoming debut album, FEED, arriving March 21 via New Focus Recordings. The latest offering from the audiovisual project of New York–by–way–of–Italy artist Matteo Liberatore presents his unique take on electronic music that aims to capture the fragmentation and alienation of modern life.

Following up lead single “Sponsored #1,” second preview “The Party” pulses with a captivating blend of euphoria and unease. The track subversively contrasts a dark, driving strain of uncanny EDM in its first half with deconstructed abstract minimalism in the latter, immersing the listener in an auditory landscape that feels familiar and surreal. The accompanying video amplifies this tension through iPhone screen recordings with facial recognition technology at a rave and a barrage of sponsored ads served by Instagram. The result is a haunting reflection on how modern surveillance culture fosters a pervasive sense of vulnerability and anxiety. Reflecting further, Liberatore adds: “Dancing is a right, a ritual, a resistance—but in a world where everything is for sale, even our joy can’t remain untouched by the machine.”

— Neill Frazer, 3.30.2025

Molto Ohm is the project of Matteo Libertatore, a media-artist/multi-instrumentalist who is also one-half of the team behind the great Please Y.S. music series. Next week, Molto Ohm is releasing its debut album, FEED, a maximalist, conceptual, yet imminently bubblegum treatise on media, capitalism and humanity. Chances are, what you step into at Zone One on Saturday night will involve not only sound but video and theory. But fun too, I’m sure. I always trust Matteo to bring that.

— Piotr Orlov, 4.01.2025

more eaze and Molto Ohm Don’t Have A Niche

Mari Maurice and Matteo Liberatore talk not fitting into a particular scene, collaboration, improvisation, their musical origins, and more.

Mari Maurice is a New York-based composer and multi-instrumentalist who performs as more eaze; Matteo Liberatore is an Italian-born, New York-based visual artist and composer whose latest project is Molto Ohm. In March, more eaze put out a record with Claire Rousay called no floor, and Matteo released his debut as Molto Ohm, FEED. To celebrate, the two got together to chat about it all.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Mari Maurice: One thing I’m really curious about — I know a little bit about your background and how you got into music, but I’m interested in tracing the influences from a formative age to what you’re doing with Molto Ohm now, and how you see that stuff all intertwining.

Matteo Liberatore: Funny enough, Molto Ohm might be the first project where I can finally put all my influences in one. I feel like up to now it’s been a bit more compartmentalized. Like, “OK, this is my decade of improvised guitar work.” And then before that, I was like, “This is my decade of studying classical music.” And it’s not like I wanted to [compartmentalize it], but I feel like the curiosity has always brought me different places. You probably feel the same — you’ve jumped [around], you have different influences. But yeah, when I was a teenager, I was mostly drawn to Eurodance stuff, honestly.

Mari: Oh, cool. [Laughs.]

Matteo: Growing up, it was always on the radio, and when I was 15 or 16, my friends in high school would go to the club once in a while. I wasn’t really listening to that stuff at home, but then we would go to the club and I would just dance all night.

Mari: It’s a huge part of the social fabric.

Matteo: Yeah. I remember I bought a specific blue glow t-shirt — it looked like super flashy metallic — and I would just stand on tables and dance all night. But I wouldn’t really listen to that stuff at home, that would be the thing you do socially. And then I had a lot of Italian pop music at home. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Italian artists like Degregori Battisti, Lucio Dalla — all these Italian singer-songwriters — my mom would listen to that stuff all the time. Whereas my dad was more into older vinyl, kind of an audiophile. He had these huge speakers that he bought in the ‘60s when he was young. And he wouldn’t listen to music that much, but I kind of got from him this interest in gear, even though he was not a musician. Nobody in my family is a musician, really. And then I randomly got into guitar when I was 14.

Mari: That’s the same age for me.

Matteo: Yeah. I was at the bar with a friend and he was like, “Why don’t we start a band?” I never really thought about playing an instrument before, but he was like, “I want to play drums.” And I said, “No, I want to play drums.” So we had this fight for a bit, and eventually he won and I was like, “Fine, I’ll play guitar.” My whole life was decided in front of a Guinness. I picked up the guitar, learning an instrument became super fun right away. I was super curious about it. And then from there, it kind of snowballed into getting good at guitar, and that snowballed into going to a conservatory — and that’s 10 years long in Italy.

Mari: Woah!

Matteo: But I made it in five. So I got really good at classical guitar, but I was like, “I don’t want to play classical guitar my whole life.” And my teacher was like, “It sounds like you have so many interests. Why don’t you go to New York?” Just in passing. But I became obsessed with the idea of moving to New York. So I came to America and I started studying jazz. But in the meantime, I played a lot of bluegrass in Italy.

So I then found myself in New York with all these different influences, and I didn’t know how they were going to ever come together. Then I got more into experimental music, and that opened up a lot of doors in terms of understanding music and sound. But then finally, three or four years ago with this Molto Ohm project, I was able to throw everything in there. I feel like I filter my life through this project, in a way — all my ideas about life, society, politics, culture. So then music can help to pull out those ideas from myself. So it’s not really about the genre anymore, it’s about an idea that’s maybe outside the music. The unifying theme is something that’s almost extramusical. How do you think of it?

Mari: I really relate to a lot of that in terms of everything I’ve been doing as more eaze, since the creation of the project.

Matteo: How long has it been now?

Mari: The first record came out around this time in 2015. At the time, I’d been making music under my own name for several years before that, and I felt like there was a lot of baggage attached to it. Also similar to you, it felt very compartmentalized. I had grown up playing a lot of music in Texas, and I started very young playing shows with Americana bands and folk bands, and would sit in with them playing guitar, playing fiddle, playing my own really shitty singer-songwriter songs. I would hang out with all of these older folks, and made a bunch of records as a teenager doing that stuff that’s, like, deeply embarrassing music. [Laughs.] I had gotten kind of known in San Antonio very young doing music like that, and I had done my undergrad in San Antonio at Trinity, which was a pretty conservative school musically, but I discovered a lot of good stuff there. Actually, largely through a professor in the English department that I studied with — he would make mixes for all of his students, and a very pivotal moment was he put a Robert Ashley song on one of them. I was like, Holy shit. This is everything I’ve been looking for in music. And I, just through interlibrary loan, would get every CD and rip it, and then I started trying to do that with every Lovely Music, LTD thing.

Matteo: How old were you when that happened?

Mari: I was 20, 21. So I got really obsessed with that, and started making experimental music a little bit. I had been really into Editions Mego, and a lot of harsh noise, and a lot of very glitchy, laptop-core stuff. I started playing music just using my own name, and people who had normally gone to my shows fucking hated it. It was a real uphill struggle, and I was just kind of like, “Man, I don’t know if I’m ever going to find anyone who wants to collaborate or work with me.”

Going to CalArts for grad school was kind of freeing for that. But I was also doing very serious chamber compositions and things like that too. So I kind of had the same feeling you had of, I guess just for this period of time, I’m going to be doing this, and then at this period of time I’m going to be doing that. It all felt very confusing, because it was all just under my name. Then shortly after I got out of school, I was just like, “I need to have a project that can be all of these things, where I can kind of synthesize everything I’m taking in,” similar to how you think.

Matteo: So consciously you were like, “I want to do this.”

Mari: Yeah. And I mean, I think there were a lot of feelings about transitioning and gender wrapped up in that, that I hadn’t fully unpacked. Because I really just wanted to disappear into the music I was making and I didn’t want anyone to think about it as being me, as it having to be my name and my face.

Matteo: I feel very, very similar.

Mari: Yeah, I feel like we have a really similar idea of this. But yeah, I feel like more eaze was created with the idea of trying to think about how all of these things that I am influenced by both musically and extra musically, and to try to unpack that all. It was a way to synthesize a lot of influences and make it a single thing. And I think similarly to what you’re talking about with Molto Ohm — sometimes that might be something that is very close to singer-songwriter music, or it might be more like chamber music, or sometimes that might be much more abstract electronic work. But it feels like all those things can live in equal measure. And I think at this point now, that’s something that is a little bit more accepted. I don’t know if you encountered this too, but I definitely felt like when I first started more eaze, there was a real uphill struggle — especially in experimental music — to get people to understand a project like this.

Matteo: Yeah. I have this project and I’m like, “Well, where does this fit really? Is this electronic music?” I guess it could be put into an umbrella of experimental electronic, because there’s rarely an acoustic instrument. But it’s like, “Do I play audiovisual shows? Yeah, I fit enough. Do I play improvised shows? I fit enough. Do I play a DJ set? I fit enough.” It fits a little bit different places, but it’s not like there’s a specific scene for that.

Mari: Totally.

Matteo: But then I see your work and it seems like you found a world where you exist and you’re known for that. So I guess it just takes time for people to get used to the work.

Mari: Yeah, I think it definitely takes time for people to get used to it. At least when I lived in Texas, I feel like it was really hard for people to understand that, because I would get booked with these shows with people who were maybe in indie rock bands, and they had heard a song I’d made, and then I’d get there and it’s, you know, 20 minutes of collage and two minutes of songs, and you could just see the palpable frustration. And then the improvisers, it’s the exact reverse situation. A lot of times I would do these solo violin pieces and they’re all on board with that, but then the second I start singing, they’re just scowling. So it’s a struggle.

But at least now, what I’ve noticed is people in these different scenes are in general a bit more open-minded to that. And maybe part of this too is the experience of New York versus Texas. But I find it interesting because I’ll play shows at someplace like The Owl, which is typically geared towards more acoustic music, but everyone there will be very supportive and very interested and open to what’s happening. But then I might go and play more of a show that’s very electronically focused, and that also feels comfortable in a way. There’s just a little bit more of this acceptance. And I think that’s something that’s actually really exciting about where both of our projects are at; they don’t have to fit in any particular niche. They can actually go in all of these different directions and follow all these different threads.

Matteo: Yeah, there’s pros and cons. Because if you have a more defined path, it’s a little easier to get going with things.

Mari: [Laughs.] Yeah, it’s a lot easier.

Matteo: “These are the clubs. These are the shows, these are the magazines. This is the music.”

Mari: You have a prescribed path forward. And I think that’s the thing that’s been very confusing, about my career at least — there are all of these weird curves in the road. Sometimes you’re on this huge upswing, and then it’s like, “Oh, nobody cares.” And then that happens again, and then it happens again. And at this point, doing it for a decade, it’s just probably going to be like this for the rest of my life. And that’s OK, because I feel like most of the artists that I really like, that work in all these different mediums, I see that happen a lot. One of my favorite artists is Oren Ambarchi, and I feel like that’s his whole career — he’ll do something and it gets a lot of attention, and then he’ll do something that’s equally amazing and maybe only the heads really know it. He’s kind of the career model.

Matteo: Yeah, I like Oren a lot.

Mari: Me too. I would love to know your experience with this, especially as someone else who went through a conservatory: One of the things that I was really trying to get at, too, with more eaze was that there was so much of this serious attitude around experimental music. Everything was extremely black and white, there was not a lot of room for any sort of cross-pollination or even just a sense of humor in the music. And your music obviously has a lot of humor in it — I feel like every time I’ve seen a Molto Ohm set, it’s cracked me up at one point. I really love that, and I’m very curious if you had a similar experience being in academia and being at a conservatory, and just how you see humor in music in music in general.

Matteo: The first thing that came to me is this quote from this free jazz book that I read — the book starts with an anecdote of some guy that goes to a free jam session, and he’s like, “What is this?” And they say, “It’s a free jam session.” And he says, “What do you mean? I can play anything I want?” “Yes.” And he starts playing a folk song, and they kick him out.

Mari: [Laughs.] That’s amazing.

Matteo: It’s like, what does it mean to be free? Does it mean that you can do everything you want? “Free” has become like its own language. But then there’s also the John Cage quote that says, “One day I want to play a C major, and I want it to sound like just a bunch of notes.”

Mari: Oh, yeah.

Matteo: There’s all this cultural value inside the C major, right? So those are two funny things to me. I mean, humor is fine. I don’t know if I see a demarcation between humor and darkness, really. I feel like the two can overlap.

Mari: I really agree.

Matteo: I mean, David Lynch just died. I’ve been rewatching a lot of his stuff, and it’s always kind of funny while it’s being really dark. I’ve had other people tell me that Molto Ohm can be funny at times, but I kid you not, some of the parts that are the funniest, I didn’t want it to be funny. I wanted it to be sad or dark. And then the first time I played, people laughed at some parts. I was at first kind of thrown off. I was like, “Why are you laughing?” And then I realized how much of the funny and the weird and the dark overlap.

Mari: Yes.

Matteo: There’s a part of the live show where sometimes I use this sample of me reciting all of the kinds of Dove soap — which there are, like, 100. So I’m just like, “Dove Shea Pampering Better Body Wash. Dove Winter Care Body Wash.” And then I had this video I made that was just a bunch of footage of lions looking in the wilderness, and the music was a really sad song. To me, that was signifying the absurdity of commercialism, industrialization, the commercial world with nature and the universe. To me, it was kind of serious. But then my friends were like, “Oh, this is so fucking funny.” So then I started thinking about that, and I realized a lot of the art I like, it’s at the same time a bit dark, but also a bit funny. The movies that I end up really liking often have this quantum quality.

Mari: Oh, absolutely.

Matteo: Molto Ohm deals a lot with capitalism, commercialization, and the internet — I mean, absurdity comes with the territory. So I think the topic itself can be absurdist, and in the absurdity, fun and darkness can come together.

Mari: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, and is most certainly something I really relate to as well. A lot of the records I’ve made with Seth Graham, there’s a ridiculousness to the sound quality and everything that’s happening. But Seth and I, when we’re working on it, usually have this goal of a sense of overwhelm and intensity — all these things happening should have the effect of ultimately making us cry. But it could also be really funny to you, too. Which I think is something that I was always really interested in, that dichotomy.

When I was younger and studying composition at Trinity, I can remember having this whole semester where all we did was listen to Ligeti — who I love. There’s something about that music that really tows that line between darkness and humor, because he’ll make these absurd gestures, and they’re so powerful and they sound so fucked up and intense, but they’re also really funny. And I think whether he wants them to have that effect or not is ultimately kind of irrelevant. It’s interesting though, because knowing what I know about him as a composer, there is this intensity but he also seems to be searching for this absurdity. I think that shows, to some degree, with how often the titles of his music have very rote and boring connotations — just like, “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” — and then it starts off and there’s an ocarina solo and you’re just like, “Dude, what?” [Laughs.]

Matteo: That’s amazing. I mean, that made me think of Stockhausen, “Helicopter String Quartet.”

Mari: Oh, totally. It’s absurd. It’s really funny.

Matteo: It’s super hilarious.

Mari: I think about that with Stockhausen a lot too, because it’s so serious, but even when you look at those text scores he did — there’s one that really cracks me up where it’s just like, “Live without food or water. Don’t go outside for eight days. Play one note.” [Laughs.] How could you not laugh when writing that?

Matteo: I have a question. What is your relationship with music genres?

Mari: My relationship with genre is really complicated. I think that it’s really interesting, and I like the idea of genre as this labeling of things. Like, one of my favorite activities is to go on Rate Your Music and find some obscure record I like and see what absolutely batshit crazy genre tag they’ve given it. Because it will be something that’s so hyper specific, and then you’re like, “I want to find out what other things people think is this genre,” because a lot of times it’s really not something that’s particularly related at all. It can be interesting to see how people are trying to categorize or understand that.

But I also find [genre] really limiting in a lot of ways, and I’ve tried very much with a lot of what I do to avoid that. Because I think that when you start to think about the idea of, “I am this kind of artist,” there’s sort of a pre-prescribed path and sense of expectations with what that means. And that’s always something I’ve been really skeptical of. Especially when I lived in Texas and the scenes and communities were very small, very insular, and often very snobbish, that was something I really wanted to avoid. I was always very careful not to get too attached or involved in any one scene, because I was just like, “I don’t want to be the person who’s only booked for this kind of thing…” I want to work with a lot of different people. I want to have that freedom to go where my interest takes me, and I don’t want to feel like I am beholden to the scene or this style.

I would love to hear you speak about [improvisation], and how you see the role of improvisation in the work that you do.

Matteo: Improvisation changed my life entirely. I don’t know if I had the best relationship with music until I started improvising, because it was like: you study music, you understand the genre, you understand how it works. When I was studying jazz, I feel like I had to learn so much in so little time to be able to apply to school and come to America, and I was not really enjoying it — I was really just figuring out how to do it. So the enjoyable part of it came much later when I finished school. When I got into free improv, I really understood the beauty of just playing a note and hearing the sound. And then discovering John Cage, all of that stuff.

Improvisation has become an integral part of how I work. Even now when I play solo with almost a DJ setup, sometimes I’m literally just throwing a fader up randomly, because I like the idea of a mistake that can lead to new things.

Mari: Me too.

Matteo: I try to make, quote-unquote, “mistakes” as much as I can because I think our brain is pretty limited with our influences. Collaboration is a way of bringing some fresh ideas into the mix. The first year [of playing as Molto Ohm], I was mostly playing the tracks synced with some video elements, so it was more like composing. And then a year later, I was like, “I want to loosen things up a little bit.” And the best way I could do that was to play with other people.

Composing in free music starts when you pick the people. So when I ask someone [to collaborate], it’s like, “I want you to come in and bring your own aesthetic, and I’m not asking you to do other stuff.” When you put two people next to each other, that’s already a kind of composition. And I like to think of improv kind of like that. It’s like a dialogue — but it doesn’t have to be call-and-response necessarily. It can just be two things existing in the same space.

Mari: I love that.

Matteo: That in itself can be enough to make something interesting — “bring your own aesthetic, let’s put it next to mine.” Like John Cage and Merce Cunningham together — John Cage would make the music, Cunningham would make the dance, and they would never listen or watch each other’s work, but just meet up the day of the show and say, “Let’s see what you choreographed, let’s see what you made.” I like that idea.

Mari: I absolutely love that. As I’ve continued working as more eaze, and in other collaborative projects, I feel like that’s what it’s all about: “What do you bring to the table? And how can we make this something that will coalesce regardless of anything else?”

Matteo: I feel like to do that, you have to be very comfortable with the idea of letting go of control.

Mari: Yes.

Matteo: I had a lot of issues with that when I was younger. It takes experience to be able to trust someone else that, because of who they are, they’re going to be bringing things that I want. Like, I don’t even know what they’re going to bring, but I already know that I’m going to want that. It is hard to get to that point of view. It’s a muscle that you need to work on.

Mari: Yeah, it’s like exercise. You have to just keep doing it.

Matteo: Yeah. The more you realize that someone else can give you something new, the more you look for it. Anybody that has a skill that I don’t have, now it’s like, “Please — please come help me!” [Laughs.]

— Molto Ohm, 4.01.2025