---
title: Moldover
description: Moldover, the San Francisco musician and instrument designer who coined controllerism; Sarth Calhoun has shared bills and improvised with him since the Warper Party nights of 2009.
url: https://www.sarth.net/conspirators/moldover/
credit: Moldover and Sarth Calhoun shared Warper Party bills in New York in 2009; Calhoun names him among the improvisers behind Introspections, and lists a video with him.
author: Sarth Calhoun
---
[Conspirators](/conspirators/) / Moldover

Conspirator

# Moldover

Musician and instrument designer, the coiner of controllerism. We shared Warper Party bills in New York and have improvised together.

Matthew [Moldover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldover) (born 1980), known as Moldover, is a musician, technologist and instrument designer based in San Francisco. He studied electronic music composition at Berklee, moved to New York to play in bands, and in 2005 coined the term controllerism for making music live with computer controllers and software; the MIDI Association has called him the Godfather of Controllerism. His instruments include the Mojo, the Robocaster, the Guitar Wing and a line of multiplayer Jamboxes, and he has performed at Sónar, Mutek and Coachella.

![Moldover performing at SHA2017, lit from below.](/images/conspirator-moldover.jpg)

Moldover performing “Step From Darkness,” SHA2017, the Netherlands, August 2017. Photo: Victor Bart, uploaded by Moldover, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moldover_-_Step_From_Darkness_-_at_SHA2017_(by_Victor_Bart).jpg).

> I have been fortunate enough to explore these ideas with great improvisers, including Laurie Anderson, Moldover, John Zorn, Sxip Shirey, Marc Ribot and Rob Wasserman.
> 
> Sarth Calhoun, [Introspections](/transmissions/introspections/)

## Warper Party and after

We were on the same bill at the Warper Party at The Delancey in New York on March 4, 2009, and Clocktower’s Warper Party Radio Extravaganza lists us both among its performers. On July 9, 2012 I posted about his Jamboxes on my old site, under [Contraptions](/contraptions/); only the title survives. I have named him among the improvisers I explored the [Introspections](/transmissions/introspections/) ideas with, and my [CV](/work/) lists a video with him.

On December 30, 2025 his channel posted “Sarth plays Moldover’s Voice Crusher,” two and a half minutes of me on the Voice Crusher, the playable packaging of his album *Four Track*: a musical instrument that comes with the physical copy of the record.

The credit: Moldover and Sarth Calhoun shared Warper Party bills in New York in 2009; Calhoun names him among the improvisers behind Introspections, and lists a video with him.

[Embedded player](https://www.youtube.com/embed/DBrarrD8n_g)

The video: “[Sarth plays Moldover’s Voice Crusher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBrarrD8n_g),” Moldover’s channel, December 30, 2025. The Voice Crusher is the playable packaging for [Four Track](https://moldover.bandcamp.com/album/four-track).

The profile is from public sources, linked where they appear. What we made is the record on this site and the sources cited above.