When it comes to music, Matt Politoski feels like a baby. The one-time erstwhile frontperson of beloved emo troupe Animal Flag freely cops to serious holes in his listening history. To wit, his band once opened for a certain hugely influential Long Island post-hardcore band (of whom we will graciously leave nameless), despite not having heard a lick of their music prior. Some light clowning from his bandmates ensued. Although creative in one form or another for basically his entire life, Politoski’s formative years were spent building a wide canon often at odds (at least at the surface level) with the heart-on-its-sleeve DIY world that embraced his mid-20s endeavors. In fact, his earliest forays into music making leaned much more abstract. 

Inspired in equal part by the nature-adjacent sounds of IDM mainstays like Boards of Canada and the approachable intimacy of Dntel, he took to making field recordings of his world. Captured on whatever tech at hand (laptops, flip phones, battered camcorders, an eventual upgrade to a zoom recorder) was the ins and outs of adolescence in a small New York town: nature and city both within reach. That initial spark, that love of pure sound design and composition, was what brought him to Boston (specifically Berklee) in the first place. That move eventually pulled him into the noisy orbit of Boston’s vibrant rock scene, as well as his future bandmates in Animal Flag.

While the loud racket Politoski kicked up in AF was far from forgery, the band’s quiet dissolution afforded him some time away from live performance to reconsider his relationship with sound. Bronze Vases then, could be seen as a way of returning to that childlike sense of pure joy, an attempt to reclaim the magic in music making. He claims it to be a “blend of natural organic sound and man-made machinery,’ and that feels rather apt.

Suffice to say we were pleased to get a chance to speak with him about the recording, as well as the meaning and feeling behind each song on his debut EP, Earth Sounds Volume 1. Listen in a day ahead of its release at the embed below.

Bronze Vases· Earth Sounds Volume 1

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Geometry Mountain

I spent a lot of time outside during the making of this EP and I think that is reflected in the titles and album artwork (by LaMonnet). I hope it’s also reflected in the music itself. Electronic music is often perceived as inorganic or mechanical because it’s made predominantly with machines. I watched this Björk interview where she talks about how electricity has always existed on earth, and that just like wood or metal, we now harness it to make music. If you think of it that way, electronic music is just the most recent step in a long tradition that humans have of utilizing our natural world to make music. Every sound is an earth sound. That really changed the way I think about music. Thank you Björk!

Musically speaking this track is heavily inspired by “Light Through The Veins” by Jon Hopkins. I feel like I will continuously try to make my own version of that song throughout my life. “Geometry Mountain” is my first attempt.

Were You

Over the past couple of years I became more serious about making field recordings and actively listening to both the natural and industrial soundscapes that we are constantly immersed in. I discovered the work of acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton and it really got me thinking about what it means to be a good listener. So naturally a lot of the field recordings I made over this time period made their way into these songs. In “Were You” the bird recordings are processed through Ableton’s “Beat Repeat” plug-in along with this super-stretched trombone sound. I wanted the birds to feel subliminal. Like you are unsure if they are coming from the music or from your actual environment.

This was the first song I completed for this project back in the summer of 2020. My friend Matt Lombardi who runs a label called Tower To The Sea Records asked me to make a song for a compilation album they were putting together. This song became the blueprint for the rest of the EP, so in a way Matt prompted me to make this whole project. Thank you Matt!

Running

The vocal sample from this song comes from a time I was on tour with VÉRITÉ in February of 2020. We were standing in this massive reverbant stairwell and I asked her to sing something into my phone so I could sample it. Months later as I was working on “Running” I pulled the recording into the session and realized she had coincidentally been singing in the same key and tempo as the song. I made some adjustments to it but the main idea was right there in the sample. Most of my favorite musical moments are complete accidents which is always a good reminder to myself to CHILL OUT 😎

Ciervo

I started this song back in 2017 while staying at my best friend Sai’s parent’s house. (Go check out his incredible debut album: VIMS by Mercet) The song was called “Sai House Beat” on my computer for years LOL. Sai was my absolute guiding light throughout the making of this EP and it simply would not exist without him. Another one of my favorite people and closest collaborators, Zach Weeks, blessed this track with some beautiful sounds. He sent me this deranged piano, washy synths, and a toy piano melody (among other sounds) that I thought were just magical. Zach also mastered the EP which honestly feels like cheating because he made it sound so damn good. Sai, Zach, and I played in a band called Animal Flag for years and they’ve remained two of my closest friends and creative partners so it feels really good that they are part of this project 😀

This track also features a voice memo recording of my friend Alana recalling a dream she had. I was looking for some sort of audio recording to fill the space in the song and remembered this super intimate voice memo she had shown me years ago. Coincidentally the dream she was describing fit perfectly with the theme of the lyrics. Thank you for letting me use this Alana!

Ambrosia String

I made this song after obsessively listening to the album “Lunatic Harness” by µ-Ziq for a week straight. Originally the music box sound came from a video I found on a Famous Band’s Instagram page. I couldn’t get the sample cleared so I had to recreate the sound from scratch. The same day that the sample got denied, my neighbor asked me to feed her cat while she was gone. I went over to her apartment to feed the cat and I saw a music box sitting on her piano. It turns out this music box was in the same key of the song I was making. So after a whole week of tedious audio chopping I successfully recreated the sound. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The title “Ambrosia String” is an anagram of “[insert band name] Instagram”. Big prize to whoever can figure out what band it is. There is no big prize. That part is a joke!

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Earth Sounds Volume 1 is out Friday, June 4th. You can get a digital copy on Bandcamp right here, with all proceeds going towards stocking a community fridge in Beacon, NY where the artist resides.