VĀ – A Listening Event
A dedicated listening experience built around Matt Sephton’s debut album VĀ, a place-based album of nature-driven electronic music created during a residency in Samoa in 2025.
The album plays in full, accompanied by atmospheric visuals from the island of Upolu, projected as an immersive backdrop to the music.
Woven into the performance are live elements using hydrophones and Ableton Live software – the same tools used to make the record – alongside a short show-and-tell exploring the process: the field recording practice, the hydrophone explorations, and what it means to make music in genuine dialogue with a place and its people.
An evening for attentive ears. Come ready to listen.
Matt Sephton is a producer and sound artist based in Te Tara o Te Ika / Coromandel, Aotearoa New Zealand. Known for his bass-heavy electronic music as Matt Rapid, he now records under his own name, making place-based, nature-driven work grounded in deep listening and location.
His debut album VĀ (March 2026) was created during a two-and-a-half-month residency at the Tiapapata Art Centre, Upolu, Samoa. Built from field recordings, hydrophone explorations, and bass-heavy electronic production, in collaboration with Samoan and Pacific musicians. It is the first chapter in an ongoing practice of place-based music-making: work that goes somewhere, listens deeply, and brings that place back into sound.
Links:
Website: www.mattsephton.nz/va
Bandcamp: mattrapid.bandcamp.com
Saturday 18 April, 5pm @ Audio Foundation
Koha
