Autonomous Music Preservation Society
A.M.P.S. is a cultural organization dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and cultivation of DIY music and art in Arizona and beyond. We offer workshops, classes, labs, and other educational opportunities through our Desert School of DIY, as well as running a small record label, hosting performances and curating events and venues. The company was founded in 2024 by journeyman recording artist and lo-fi torchbearer Mark Matos with the help of his family and friends. Matos has released thirteen albums of his own material, as well as producing albums for other artists and scoring indie films for the likes of James Franco. After nearly twenty-five years in the DIY recording world, Matos has turned his attention toward the preservation and cultivation of autonomous creativity through the creation of A.M.P.S.
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Services
Classes & Labs
A.M.P.S. partners with local schools, homeschooling cooperatives, teen centers, and summer camps, providing music appreciation classes, writing labs, introductory music and podcast production courses for teens, vinyl listening clubs, as well as a “Rockers Read to Kids” program.
Desert School of DIY
The Desert School of DIY is a music summer camp concept that incorporates instruction on recording, writing and producing an independent album. Campers will be instructed on everything from songwriting to designing the album cover, with a compilation album of the music and sounds recorded at the camp available to students and parents. We hope to inaugurate the camp in the summer of 2025 in Prescott, Arizona.
Preservation & Promotion
In an attempt to do our part to preserve and promote non-commercial, DIY music in our small corner on the outskirts of fractured America, A.M.P.S. will release a limited number of albums and compilations on “offline” physical media like compact disc, vinyl, and cassette.
School Assemblies & More
A.M.P.S. has a wide range of school and teen center presentations appropriate for school assemblies, classroom lectures, and seminars. The presentations focus on American history by way of America’s rich musical narrative, “A Musicians History of the United States” presented by musicians, writers and musicologists.
Partnerships
If you are a home schooling co-operative, alternative school, charter school, teen center, private or public school, and would like to partner with the Autonomous Music Preservation Society, please reach out at one of the addresses below.
Egypt LaFleur: desertschoolofdiy@gmail.com
Mark Matos: markpaulmatos@gmail.com
Autonomous Music Preservation Society 