Last year we wrote about Matthew J Van Howe’s single, ‘Legend Of The Galactic Princess‘. The track certainly lived up to its ambitious sounding title, and propelled Van Howe into the realm of “truly interesting experimental artists”. Now he’s returned with his new album, ‘Cognitive Concrete’, self-released on February 10. One of the tracks, ‘cincodecinco’, comes with a mesmerising music video. The clip was created and performed in real time on Twitch, in a collaborative effort between Van Howe and VJ, DJ, and Developer, Lerk.
The video was created between Van Howe and Lerk, who built customised control panels for the iPad, and mapped functions over to an XBox controller, enabling both of them to operate the camera, and perform edits and special effects live and on the fly. They used touchdesigner, chataigne, magic music visuals, touchosc, NestDrop, loopmidi, ableton live, obs, and snapcam. These words might not mean much to most people, but one look at the video for ‘cincodecinco’ is enough to convince one that it’s been worth it.
Swirling, almost fractal images pan across the screen, interspersed by the face of Van Howe himself. At times he is luminous and mystical, at others his face is made up of multiple tiny faces. It’s trippy, it’s psychedelic, it’s fun. His voice is operatic and fulsome, enticing and inviting, yet altogether mysterious. The lyrics are equally intriguing, as they speak of functions, signs, and fireflies.
Watch the video for ‘cincodecinco’ below, and stream and download ‘Cognitive Concrete’ on Bandcamp.
You can find out more about Matthew J Van Howe online on his official website, and Facebook.
