CMAU is a quartet that evolved out of a performance at Mills College's legendary Thursday Night Special concert series. They use contact microphones to amplify homemade instruments and found objects (dry ice, toy piano, motors, cracked cymbals, springs, etc.) as well as samples and live computer synthesis and processing. CMAU has performed at many music festivals including CEAIT 2002 at Cal Arts (Valencia), the 4th Annual Music for People and Thingamajigs (San Francisco), Signal Flow 2002 (Oakland), NWEAMO 2002 (Portland, San Diego), Sound/Shift 2003 (Oakland), Noisefest 2003 (Sacramento), the NPR Series 2004 (Oakland), and the 5th Annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival in 2004.