Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, A Radical Moment of Change - Creator Tales 023

Creator Tales from Kaju Creative

Hailed as "one of the freshest feeling projects in Australian music right now" (Happy Mag), Meanjin/Brisbane cult favourite artist-activist Matt Hsu is a 2022 & 2020 QMA winning Taiwan-Australian composer, multi-instrumentalist, alt-orchestra leader and anti-racism activist. His project Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra is both his solo artist moniker and 24-piece orchestra underpinned by inclusivity, gender diversity, community-mindedness and DIY ethos.

Matt’s mythos as an inimitable music auteur creating unpredictable and exquisite music way off Australia’s well trodden ‘indie path’, is rapidly snowballing with comparisons to genre-defying artists like Andre 3000 (both his Outkast and ‘what-even-is-music flute era), Cosmo Sheldrake, Shugo Tokumaru, Mid-Air Thief, and Alabaster DePlume, with the live presence of Kokoroko meets Polyphonic Spree — zig-zagging from whimsical ‘gnome-core’ bedroom pop, second-line horns, socially conscious collabs, found object soundscapes, to Studio Ghibli-esque sweeping symphonies, all imbued with distinctly ‘Matt Hsu’ sensibility.

In solo artist mode, Matt uses the moniker Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra as his multi-instrumental exhaust valve, creating otherworldly music that celebrates difference and the juicy spaces between cultures, drawing from his ‘punk-trained composer’ roots as a founding member of beloved protest band The Mouldy Lovers. With a signature maximal-minimalism and uncanny hungriness for weaving found objects, odd instruments, eclectic collabs and DIY ethos into strange aural alchemy, Matt enraptures music lovers, musicians “who know” and audiophiles with an offbeat sense of adventure.

The radically-inclusive 24-piece Obscure Orchestra gang might be Meanjin’s most eclectic lineup of alternative/experimental musicians, queer noise artists, indie figures, conservatorium defectors and hip hop luminaries; comprising of First Nations, BIPOC, disabled, neurodiverse, non-binary and trans artists. Surfacing as one of Australia’s most sought after projects (recently opening the 2024 QMAs) Obscure Orchestra challenges both the ‘white dudes with guitars’ indie music canon, and the pomp and formality of classical orchestras, bringing a fresh burst of joyful anti-colonial noisemaking, DIY spirit and POC-led diversity to the Australian music landscape. MHOO are steadily usurping cultural meccas like a trojan horse - a ‘really really big indie band’ in the vague outline of an orchestra, gleaming with alt-pop/ hip hop/weird folk/activist/noise experiment weirdness - gaining the attention of ABC’s Art Works and the ABC Classic 100.

When Matt isn’t making sounds, he can be spotted in Meanjin floating on a handbuilt bicycle, craving ramen and Taiwanese fried chicken.

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Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra

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