Many people are aware that 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the birth
of Alan Turing, “The Man Who Cracked The Enigma Code”, much of whose
work remained secret until after his untimely death in 1952. Less well
known is that his Mother was Irish, and his favorite song was Molly
Malone, which, so the story goes, he insisted on rendering on the
violin to the police who came to arrest him on charges of gross
indecency, before agreeing to make his statement to them.
The recording by Matmos of Clodagh Simonds (Fovea Hex / Mellow Candle)
singing Molly Malone, was first featured on their FOR ALAN TURING ep,
part of a work commissioned in 2006 by The Mathematical Sciences
Research Institute at Berkely CA on the opening of their new
Mathematics Hall. It will be available as a free download for three
days only, March 16, 17, and 18, from the Fovea Hex Bandcamp page
foveahex.bandcamp.com . Matmos anticipate that the full FOR ALAN
TURING ep will be digitally re-released to coincide with Turing’s
100th anniversary in June 2012
Martin joins So Percussion for their truly staggering performance stride across the landscape of John Cage’s (shockingly groovy) percussion work, and not-necessarily percussive work…sometimes simultaneously, sometimes not. Really, these guys show their frightening level of skill here…don’t miss it. Here’s the text stolen from Toronto Arts Online:
A celebration of John Cage’s 100th birthday with striking textures from vibraphones, drums, aluminum space blankets, tin cans, synthesizers, laptops, and, of course, an amplified cactus! Program includes John Cage’s Credo in US, Imaginary Landscape #1, the controversial 4’33’’ and a world premiere by turntable composer Nicole Lizée (Canada) featuring special guests M.C. Schmidt, from Matmos, and electronica musician Dan Deacon.
For tickets call 416.408.0208 or visit www.rcmusic.ca
Mar 2, 2012 At: Koerner Hall – Telus Centre for Performing Arts, 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto Playing: Friday Times: 8pm Getting there: Take subway to St. George station. Cross the street and walk east a block to the Telus Centre for the Performing Arts. Located on the south side of Bloor St.
Matmos has, to the best of our knowledge, never performed in the great
state of Texas. That’s not due to some high falutin’ cultural embargo
because the state’s governor is a homophobic secessionist cretin, no
sir. Many states in the union are saddled with similarly objectionable
human beings, so there’s no sense singling out the Lone Star state.
It’s simply because we’re lazy and it hasn’t happened yet.
But all that will change in the new year when we truck on down to Houston to
fire up the only American presentation of “(the LID”, our
improvisational-yet-kinda-composed collaborative project with the
choreographer Ayman Harper, a Texan who mostly hangs out in Germany,
and Jermaine Spivey, a dancer from Baltimore who also mostly hangs out
in Germany. We have already opened this particular LID in Frankfurt
and Berlin and we thought it might be nice to serve it up with a side
of chile rellenos, before we whip it out again in Dresden this summer.
We are grateful to the kind people of DiverseWorks for sticking their
neck out and hosting us.
That’s next Friday or Saturday January 13 or 14th…at 7:30pm
Perhaps someone will take us out for a drink on Friday?
Scanning the crystal ball into the foreseeable future, we want to
thank the people at AV Festival who had the crazy idea to ask Vicki
Bennett aka People Like Us, to curate 744 hours of web radio on the
theme of “Slowness”. Proposing musique-concrete as a labor-intensive,
and thus inherently “slow” form of music making, Matmos have stitched
together a four hour musique-concrete marathon which will be included,
needle-in-a-hay-stack style, within Vicki’s monthlong pool of
info-ooze. Expect lots of INA/GRM classiques, but also some curveballs
(don’t ask us why Monolake and Hair Police also count for us as
musique-concrete or we’ll give you that because-I-said-so look again).
More details (sort of) can be had here:
So . .. budding director and movie fanatic Adam Baran has been
curating Queer / Art / Film, this really fantastic screening series in
New York City for a while now, and we’ve been admiring it from afar.
The setup is simple: various countercultural LGBT luminaries are asked
to cherrypick a favorite film of theirs and introduce it, in public,
to lots of likeminded cinephile perverts. Everybody watches it, and
then there’s a Q+A, and then people stagger out together for drinks
and more talking afterwards. We had the pleasure of attending Jonathan
Katz’s presentation of James Bidgood’s “Pink Narcissus”, with Bidgood
himself alive and kicking on site as well, and it was a hoot. It’s a
great honor to have been asked to take part in the series, but tough
too- how do you surprise people who’ve seen everything? how do you
“queer the queers”? Trying to up the ante of perversion but cutting
left, Drew picked Joseph Losey’s 1963 claustrophobic masterpiece THE SERVANT, an ultra-tense, smoldering psychological drama of master and
servant roleplay starring the uber-dreamy James Fox and the equally
lush Dirk Bogarde.
Drew sez: “I’m a fanatic about this movie, its look, sound and
feeling: the brittle, creepy screenplay by Harold Pinter, the cameos
from UK folk icon Davey Graham and screenwriter Pinter himself, the
suffocatingly tasteful hairdos, clothes, and décor, the sound design
and music. Every time I return to this film I find something new in
these performances, and every time I return to this film I have to
think again about what it is that makes an artwork “queer”. I can’t
wait to be confronted by “The Servant” once more. Get ready for a dark
trip.” M. C. Schmidt feels, well, differently about this movie, and
you should expect some spicy Siskel-vs.-Ebert back and forth about its
merits and its limits when Q+A time rolls around.
Thanks to Adam, we’ll be screening a fantastic print of the movie at
the IFC Center at 3232 Sixth Avenue on December 19th at 8 pm. You can
get more info, and book tickets (which you should do, this stuff sells
out), at:
LESS IS MORRISSEY: DREW WINDS UP IN THE “BEST MUSIC WRITING 2011″ PILEUP
A long time ago a very young Drew got very soggy and crushed out on
The Smiths album “Meat is Murder” and the song “Well I Wonder” in
particular. Twenty five years ago, in fact. The anniversary of this
seminal recording was celebrated by the music website Stereogum, when
Brandon Stosuy asked Drew to wax nostalgic / “critical” about this
meaty matter alongside lots of other folks. Drew’s effusions have been
selected by none other than guest editor Alex Ross to appear between
the pages of an actual book, the Da Capo press Best Music Writing
2011. It’s a tiny lesson in the difference between web scale and print
scale that his musings, which looked very longwinded in deed upon a
screen, feel cobweb thin when weighed against the far more substantial
other pieces included in this tome, which features some really
passionate, smart, and moving short and not-so-short responses to
music from various music writers that Drew is also crushed out on.
Though his contribution is on the slight end of the scale, it’s an
honor all the same to be sandwiched between Ian Nagoski and Nicki
Minaj (hot!). Drew thanks Brandon, Alex and Daphne Carr for the
invitation and inclusion.
On a related note of taking up space on the internet fulminating about
one’s musical obsessions, Drew was asked by the great and powerful
Pitchfork to weigh in on the recent revivification of Industrial
Records and the flurry of remastered Throbbing Gristle recordings. The
result is a 3,000 word blizzard of commentary / fawning / tire-kicking
about the legacy of these ascended masters. It was pretty
gut-wrenching to have to bestow numeric grades to records which are
all 10s in our hearts (Throbbing Gristle albums are many things but
they are not Olympic figure skaters), so please ignore the rankings
and just check out the prose. All shilling aside, we really do
encourage you to check out these remastered editions of five classic
TG platters; on our recent Thanksgiving vacation trip to California we
listened exclusively to these new versions, and they sound amazingly
present and powerful- especially when driving the highway 1 through
dense fog around hairpin turns that overlook deadly drops while
blasting “Beachy Head”.
Let’s be honest. For a band that actually lives in Baltimore, Matmos
just doesn’t play in its own home city very often. The reasons are
complicated and we’re not going into that right now. But all the same,
we’re really happy to break the silence by announcing that we’re on a
bill with a truly amazing lineup. Joke Lanz / aka / Sudden Infant is a
living treasure of Aktionist Noise served blood-raw. He was contact
mic-ing puke when you were still into Third Eye Blind.
Kneel before Joke you fools!
Fraternal frequencies from Twig and Caleb = immense
bro-down, and all signs point to the sonic sorority of Relay for Death
bringing heavy manners (plus how many shows have a brother band, a
sister band, and a homosexualist couple band on the same bill?) We’ll
let DJ DogDick’s description take it from here, but suffice to say,
attendance at this Manic Monday show is Mandatory:
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19th AT THE BANK
European legend SUDDEN INFANT performs in Baltimore supported by an
epic “ensemble” cast of notable American artists. A High-Brow
Artsy-Fartsy sort of event with plenty of rumbling underline for the
fartsy.
Monday Night Party Styles too,,, duh. “Back to Fool”
…
//\\ SUDDEN INFANT //\\ — NOISE AKTION SOUND POET Joke Lanz. Part of
the Schlimpfluch-Gruppe, a european band of four of the most baddass
“noise” performers ever.
\ MATMOS / — TIMELESS AND GENTLEMANLY GENIUS. Recently having
collaborated in another ensemble cast with Antony and William Dafoe.
Baltimorians, no less.
//\\ RELAY FOR DEATH//\\ — Delisciously sinister sound and
performance from twin sisters Roxann and Rachal Spikula. Stark and
scary, but not “a downer”. Puts you in a rotting forrest teaming with
deadly shrooms and rusted out scrap. It’s seems a nightmare but
there’s something comforting about about the musty scene. HANSON
records LP sold out quickly. Some of the best stuff out there. From
OAKLAND CA.
//\\ JOHNSTON BROTHERS //\\ — Brothers Caleb Johnston and Twig
Harper of “Peculiar Stock”. I think the last set they played together
it was juggling each others laps while tooting and sucking on the same
saxophone. Hopefully Wolf will be back around in time to be disgusted
by it. Joke’s on him, not Joke Lanz.
“story of the brothers grunt”
Brilliant “music film” we issued on our “label”, Vague Terrain some years ago, now available for your pleasure in internet form. Please watch and enjoy it fullscreen. With the right mindset, you will not be disappointed. Beautifully shot, edited and produced by Ryan Junell and Sagan. (J Lesser, Bevin Blechtom and Wobbly). Science Fiction, Historical Tableaux, Educational Film. “I’m really glad I have dance in my life.”
The Contemporary Art Gallery of the Brukenthal National Museum presents
“Desire is WAR”
July 7 – 31, 2011
Opening, Thursday July 7, h 17.00
6 Tribunei Str, Sibiu, RO
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10.00 – 18.00
Artists: Apparatus 22 (RO), Muhammad Ali (PK), Ştefan Botez (RO/CH), Katja-Lee Eliad (RO/IL), Farid Fairuz (LB/RO), Mikhail Karikis (GR/UK), Matts Leiderstram (SE), Matmos (US), MEN (US), Ioana Nemeş (RO), Gyarfas Olah (RO), Karol Radziszewski (PL), Emily Roydson (SE/US), Ryan Trecartin (US).
Curators Anca Mihulet and Dragos Olea (RO)
p.s. We will not be appearing live at this event…but we will be there in the form of our work.
