Noodle and Forest Party, two albums by Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, were jointly released at the beginning of February. They are also Featured Albums of the Month on KLOF. As Thomas Blake states in his review: it’s utterly impossible to attempt to categorise Hsu’s music. Perhaps his most impressive feat is the way he dissolves genre boundaries completely, or rather the way that this dissolution brings about a destabilisation of the binary norms of race and gender while somehow strengthening Hsu’s creative position. He gets around the problem of multiplicity by conceding that it may not be a problem after all, and by not trying to piece everything together neatly. Instead, he leaves everything suspended freely, so that his songs seem to interact almost of their own volition, creating their own universe with all the randomness and beautiful chaos that implies.
Accompanying this joint release is a comic book that we have the pleasure of digitally debuting below.
Matt Hsu’s on Noodle and Forest Party Comic Book
I met comic illustrator Madi Marston (@madimarston) through a good friend (fellow artist Ash Djokic) when we nearly became housemates. We didn’t end up living together, but became co-workers in the children’s section of an art gallery, bike-riding buddies, and most importantly, good friends! We geek out about Ghibli, food, cute trinkets, and she has the perfect manga recommendations; right now, it’s a very calming slice-of-life manga called Hirayasumi.
While I was putting finishing touches on the two albums Noodle and Forest Party, I approached Madi to create designs for shirts (they’ll be really cute!), and she did one better, springing up the idea of also making a comic about Obscure Orchestra! Naturally, we’ve now released the album as a comic, as well as a sticker pack and soon vinyl. So chuffed!
I love this way of working, this multi-arts goodness. For me, cartoons, books, screen, theatre, dance, or just well told stories, all percolate in the making of music — and vice-versa, I struggle to imagine favourite shows like Hey Arnold, Avatar: The Last Airbender or Lupin III feeling quite the same without each of their thoughtfully crafted soundtracks.
I’ve always quietly thought that Obscure Orchestra isn’t just a group of musicians, but a group of artists in every sense of the word, and in that noodle thread, Madi and Ash as much part of Obscure Orchestra as someone near a microphone, so much so that they appear on the Forest Party album cover. And from my experience ‘music projects’ are never just the musicians, but communities of artists, partners, friends, and local businesses that keep music alive.
So, here is the digital debut of Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra: a comic by Madi Marston — to enjoy as you listen to our an anti-racist alt-orchestra. Enjoy!
Forest Party and Noodle are jointly released on 1st February 2025.
Both albums are available now via Bandcamp: https://mhoo.bandcamp.com/
There are also MHOO Bundles that include both albums on vinyl (which ships mid-April) and the above comic book and sticker sheet. You can pre-order those here: https://mhoo.bandcamp.com/merch