quadrato is my studio debut releasing sometime in 2026. It takes significant inspiration from Kraftwerk, a german electronic quartet of the 1970s that inspired artists such as Daft Punk. The visual inspiration is the iconic PNG grid but I think I've managed to make a cool looking aesthetic out of it.
This album is my excuse to make cover art, and the fonts I am using exclusively are georgia and montserrat.
quadrato title track cover art
quadrato by matttacc 2026 all rights reversed thgirypoC
Track-by-track
album commentary:
(from youtube community posts)
02. krafttacc
The song that began it all. August 16 2025, I woke up and never expected I would start my album that day, but I woke up on my 10am alarm. I felt mere days from just turning off because I thought I wasn't getting the sleep I'd need to recover for the summer. I was right and I still owe myself hundreds of hours of sleep, but it's alright.
I had brought my toy piano from middle school, just a generic 40-something key Casio, no MIDI (no computer connectivity), no nothing. I began playing a whole bunch of nothing until I hit a really weird arpeggio, but I really liked it. I think I've changed it since then, but it still hits the same. The first version of it wasn't even diatonic, I wasn't writing in key yet, and I only made it diatonic in September.
But I had some experience with a DAW, music software. I had done a few "but it's just my voice" covers on MattTacc2, and a few days earlier I had made a really good cover of Power by Kanye, so when I came up with this mediocre arpeggio I decided to load up a synth plugin on the "plucked string" preset. It sounds both like a guitar and a harp, I pretended it was a guitar, of course, like an idiot, a fortunate one. I felt inspired by Kraftwerk, so I laid some electronic drums, with a tom pattern following the melody rhythm on Tour de France, Etape 1, by Kraftwerk.
I had wanted to make music for a while. In the Amalfi days I would try to make synth patterns on an awful synth app, and it made me feel nice, but nothing like exporting my first beat. I mean, I technically had the earliest demo of Narcissism from April, but it was so awful it doesn't count. Plus, that was only 2 channels, synth and drums, while I had the plucked string, the drums, two randomized basses playing looped patterns with like... randomized openness or something, I still dont know how that worked, and that weird arpeggio marks part one, then there's a chord-sy rise with an ear ringing plucked string tone, switching into part 2, the first few seconds of which are the part used in the album trailer. That goes on for a while, then switching into a morse code part, that used to be the ending, but became a transition point into the garden part, part 3. The original idea was that the morse code (which I think says matttacc or mtgmd) would conclude the song and get more and more distorted from start to end, turning into a fuzzy mess that would transition into a guitar tone.
This is a strange coincidence as the start of track 3, divine comedy, has a very fuzzy synth which could've worked really well. Actually, that gives me the idea to literally put a second round of morse code at the end of the third part to transition. The new drums now, are still awful, but I'm thinkin about it!!!
08. for the angel
If I decide to sing words on my album I would definitely make all of the songs about the angel character.
I've written about it, this person (that's not an actual person) that I'm expecting to come into my life, and I know that this person would wash away all my bad habits.
I'm tired so I can't write much of what I've already written in the past about the angel, but most tracks on the album carry the agitation I bring by missing the angel. It's like an ex I broke up with in September 2024, and because your reading comprehension is awful, I'm not saying I broke up with someone that month. I've never had a girlfriend, but I've felt "single" since september 2024, it's like, before that, I knew I'm just a kid and it's not the time for me, but it hit me around that time that a girlfriend wouldn't come naturally.
I've been missing this angel character since then, as if I've been moving on from a 10 year breakup that never happened. To define further, the idea of the angel has enabled my mental decline, as I expect this angel to be infinitely patient with me, or even a bit more than anyone else, which is enough to connect. I've just been expecting that regardless of how bad it gets, someone could just be patient enough to know me.
But yeah this makes the album, even in its current instrumental state, a love album, to nobody. It definitely carries my personality of being this person that's shy and reserved but is unable to show it and instead comes off as an empty-brained agitated grenade. I wish I could "cry for help", be the quiet one in the corner so that someone could ask me "u alright", but I just don't look like that, I don't look like I go back home and press my face hard on the bed.
you're witnessing the start of a trilogy...
