You’ve probably heard his work without even realizing it. Maybe it was that creeping, visceral dread in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021) or the hypnotic, pulsing textures underlying the documentary Grasshopper Republic. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe isn't your typical Hollywood composer. He doesn't sit at a grand piano or click through MIDI libraries on a MacBook Pro while sipping a latte.
He carves the air.
Honestly, trying to pin down what Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe actually is—composer, sound artist, synth wizard, vocalist—is a bit like trying to catch smoke. He’s been around for decades, starting out in the Chicago post-punk scene with 90 Day Men before morphing into the solo entity known as Lichens. He’s the guy who can walk onto a stage with nothing but a modular synthesizer and his own voice and somehow transport an entire room into a trancelike state. It’s ecstatic. It’s physical.
Why the Candyman Score Changed Everything
When Monkeypaw Productions cold-called him for the Candyman reboot, they weren't looking for a Philip Glass impersonator. They wanted something "on another level." Lowe delivered a score that felt less like music and more like a haunting.
He didn't just use synths. He recorded the cast’s voices, then stretched and manipulated them until they sounded like skittering insects or ancient ghosts. He used field recordings of electrical boxes buzzing in Chicago. The main theme, "Rows and Towers," is basically just layers of his own voice stacked into a towering, terrifying wall of sound.
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Most people get this wrong: they think he’s just making "scary noises." But Lowe is deeply rooted in the call-and-response tradition of African American music. He’s connecting sacred hymnals and work songs to the raw electricity of a modular patch. It’s a lineage.
The Secret Life of Modular Synths
Lowe talks about his modular synthesizer like it’s a living collaborator. It’s not a tool; it’s a "nonhuman organism."
- No Rules: Unlike a keyboard where 'C' is always 'C', a modular system has no fixed path.
- Tactility: He’s turning knobs and pulling cables in real-time. It’s a gesture.
- Voltage: He views electricity as a malleable material, something he can sculpt like clay.
In a 2022 interview, he mentioned using biodata from plants to control his synths. He’d hook up a prototype called a MIDI Sprout to two plants and let their internal energy determine how sound moved across a 100-speaker array. He wasn't even the one deciding where the sound went. The plants were. That’s the kind of "spontaneous music" he lives for.
From 90 Day Men to Om: A Wild Career Arc
If you go back to the early 2000s, Lowe was the lead singer and trumpet player for 90 Day Men. They were weird, proggy, and loud. But you could already hear the seeds of his current work on their final album, Panda Park. He was starting to push his voice into these strange, wordless spaces.
When that band ended, he birthed Lichens.
Under the Lichens moniker, he released The Psychic Nature of Being, a record of pure improvisation. No overdubs. Just a guy, a voice, and a guitar (at the time). Later, he joined the legendary drone metal band Om, providing those ethereal, liturgical vocals that made albums like God is Good feel like a religious experience.
What’s Happening in 2026?
Lowe isn't slowing down. In early 2026, he’s been touring a project called Nsenene, which is a live interpretation of his score for Grasshopper Republic.
It’s intense. He uses falsetto incantations and "resonant horns" (actually his voice processed through his rig) to mimic the sound of grasshopper swarms in Uganda. It’s part science fiction, part nature documentary, and entirely unsettling.
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He also premiered a new work titled Three-Sided Figure at the Madlener House in Chicago. It’s a return to his roots—pure modular synthesis and voice, investigating how sound can settle a listener into a "hypnagogic" or dream-like state. Basically, he’s still trying to make you lose yourself in the vibration.
Actionable Insights for the Curious Listener
If you’re just discovering him, don't start with the most abrasive stuff.
- Watch the movie Candyman (2021) first to see how the sound functions as a character.
- Listen to The Psychic Nature of Being if you want to hear where the solo journey began.
- Check out his collaboration with Ariel Kalma, We Know Each Other Somehow. It’s much warmer, full of field recordings of birds and "squishy" synth loops. It’s basically a sonic forest.
- Follow the label Sacred Bones or Waxwork Records. They usually handle his physical releases, which are often works of art themselves with custom booklets and "honey hand-pour" vinyl.
Lowe’s work is a reminder that technology doesn't have to be cold. It can be as organic as a human throat. If you're bored with "fixed" music that sounds the same every time you hit play, he’s the antidote. He’s out there carving the air, waiting for the machines to talk back.
Experience the Candyman soundtrack on high-quality headphones to catch the micro-textures of the manipulated field recordings. Explore the Lichens back catalog on Bandcamp to understand the evolution from guitar-based drones to complex modular patches. Watch for live performances in 2026, as his "spontaneous music" is best understood when you can see the physical gestures and cable patching happening in real-time.