“RADIO CD” was released by experimental electronic Toronto musician, Erin Corbett, on her fourth full-length album “Swelter Molt Sweat and Mettle,” with Biblioteka Records. This was back in November of 2020, but today we are elated to premiere the accompanying music video which takes us deep into the city of old media formats and all their components. Watch as Erin explores and performs through the modulation of her surroundings. Thankfully, we were able to reach Erin via television static to chat about this new video.
Since your album, ‘Swelter Molt Sweat and Mettle’ came out a little while ago, is there a particular reason you chose Radio CD for a music video?
It was the first song I wrote for the album, so it was in my head for a while. It always felt like a very visual song to me. It has a lot of different sections to it, there’s a lot of interesting textures and melodies and it’s one of the more “songy” songs on the album. It has a verse, it has a chorus, and then it has a big build up that explodes at the end. So I always felt it was a good candidate.
How did this video come about?
Before I finished the album, I reached out on Instagram asking if there was a videographer interested in working with me.
In Toronto, there used to be this internet TV station called Bump TV that was run out of two people’s basement. It was kind of a public access style, very queer TV station. They reposted my ISO because I’d done some work with them. That’s how I got in touch with Kat Zoumboulakis (the music video director), who agreed to check out the song.
Then the pandemic happened so everything got pushed back and kept being pushed back.
The whole idea with this video was based on the song’s incorporation of processed vocals, modular synth, vinyl sampling and acoustic elements. It was kind of all this mish mash of media. I also had these CDs, cassettes, old cell phones and shit just lying around that I didn’t know what to do with. So I had the idea of taking all that stuff and using it as material to create little sculptures. Kat did a lot of that, they made a lot of styrofoam towers. We incorporated little circuit boards and we hung cassette tapes up through stuff.
It was really just an ode to old media formats and trying to make use of stuff that had essentially become a waste of storage. Kat did an amazing job with it, it was all filmed with a VHS Camera so it’s got this beautifully fuzzy quality to it. On a personal note it’s a bit of an odd thing to look back on, as I had just started HRT maybe two months before the shoot and, well, a lot’s changed since then haha. I’m much more comfortable in my body now than I was back then. Still, I’m very proud of the video and the work Kat and I put into it!
Your sound has been described as experimental electronic, do you feel that accurately describes your music?
It’s hard to define my sound ‘cause I do a lot of manipulation of other sounds versus strictly electronic. I take a lot of inspiration from folk music and I feel like a lot of electronic music is either intended for clubs, like dance music, or it’s super avant-garde sound designy stuff. There’s also songwriter music where everything has a verse/chorus and a structure. I really try to do a bit of all of that, so it’s hard to define in that sense. Structurally I think it’s kind of all over the place.
What was your favourite gear or trick that was used on “RADIO CD”?
It’s a tie between the vocal processor, which is Izotope Vocal Synth and the Mutable Instruments Rings module.
It was the first time I had used the vocal synth and it’s become my go to autotune-like plug-in. It’s what I use in my live shows. The Rings module gives that really plucky kind of percussive aspect.
I’m gonna just find that sound.
*Proceeds to fiddle with the Rings module and midi controller
The Mutable Instrument Rings is a physical modeling synth, so it’s designed to make stringy sounds. The way the whole song came about was I had the Rings going alongside the vocal synth, both being triggered by my midi keyboard. Those two sounds were the main texture of the song. I also did some vinyl sampling of a 45” orchestral thing that I had found on the street. It was covered in dust and very deteriorated.
What’s your favourite equipment that you use now, years later?
I got this Telecaster that I’ve really been enjoying, but also, the Electron Digitakt Sampler has been a really fuckin fun piece of gear.
I find that a lot of samplers require setting up ahead of time, but with this you can edit so much on the fly, very quickly and intuitively. It’s very performance oriented so you can really improvise. This is the brain of my whole live setup.
What is next for Erin Corbett?
I’ve been working on music with Leucrocuta for several years now and we need to start putting it out because it’s been so long. Our project is called Slug Alter, and that will hopefully be coming sometime soon.
I also joined a post-hardcore band called Keening, and we’ve been playing a few shows this year. That’s been a lot of fun. It’s my first time playing strictly electric guitar in a band, pretty much since high school, so it’s been very fulfilling!
I’m working on a video game, my first big video game project. It’s a survival horror coming of age game, based on my experiences growing up in Kenora, Ontario as a trans person. That‘s going to be interesting to try and finish and figure out. I’ve made small digital projects before, but nothing of this scope. So that’s kind of the big thing on my to-do list.
Also I’m slowly working on more solo music. I have so much unfinished stuff that covers so many different vibes and musical directions… I have a album of like, freak-folk adjacent kind of stuff but also a lot of heavier industrial electronic stuff. My big dilemma right now is figuring out how to release everything in a way that makes sense… do I try to merge everything into a chaotic patchwork of an album, or should I segment everything into genre-specific EPs? Does it even matter? Ultimately I just need to sit down and find the time to finish everything.
You can watch Erin Corbett do her thing live at Collective Arts, Toronto on September 27th with feralbats and Wanda Parks!
Erin also recently released a single called “All You Can Think About is How Good It Feels” on ambient label “Imaginary North”, which you can check out here:
Corbett isn’t just an experimental musician, she is an animator and game designer too. She has animated and directed several music videos for fellow Toronto musicians, which you can watch here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erincorbettmusic/
Bandcamp: https://erincorbett.bandcamp.com/
Watch the new music video for "RADIO CD" here:
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