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”.
posted by mcess at 7:53pm| Comments Off on DO NOT MISS!: MATMOS SERVES UP THE SERVANT and more bragging/announcements…
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”
$$$$5-7$$$$
posted by mcess at 1:17pm| Comments Off on SUDDEN INFANT / MATMOS / RELAY FOR DEATH / JOHNSTON BROTHERS: IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR
July 29, 2011
An illustration from a Syntonic Research customer comment card insert from an “Environments” record.
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.
posted by mcess at 11:22am| Comments Off on The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Romanian Art Gallery
Tonight is Berlin, tomorrow is Leipzig, and then we bid a farewell to Europe. Tour has been delightful and we wish to thank John Wiese, Gianluca Turrini, Martin Hoersch, and Nikita Lavrichenko and all our choir members across the continent for the good times. Citizens of Los Angeles and San Francisco, strap down and get ready for strange Matmos manifestations in your cities: Saturday, June 4th at the Hammer Museum in LA; Wednesday, June 8th at the Bottom of the Hill in SF.
With the melting of winter’s ice and snow, Matmos will soon emerge from its studio hibernation to commit a bewildering variety of public outrages.
03/02 – Baltimore County – The atrocities start on Wednesday, March 2nd, when we will speak on the campus of UMBC (that’s University of Maryland, Baltimore County) in lovely Catonsville.
04/06 – Baltimore – Compounding the damage, on Wednesday April 6th we will lecture at the Mattin Center on the Homewood Campus of Drew’s very own Johns Hopkins University, a few blocks from our house. At both of these “lectures” you can expect to hear examples of our work, spicy personal stories, and theoretical and technical digressions. Snacks are often served at this sort of thing, but we make no guarantees.
04/09 – Birmingham, England – Sometimes people come up to us after our shows and ask “Who makes your videos?” The answer is M. C. Schmidt, and it’s a real honor to transmit the news that somewhere in the vicinity of Saturday April 9th M.C. will have a special screening of his video work in Birmingham, England at the IKON Gallery. This event is part of a festival in which a personal favorite of ours, Martin Creed, is rumored to perform. Someone tell us if this is true.
04/16 – Pennsylvania – Every so often Matmos has had the honor of being offered a residency at an institute of higher learning. Harvard and Oxford are now joined by an institution much closer to home, Haverford College in Pennsylvania. As the concluding event of a weeklong “residency” (no, not couch-surfing) there, on Saturday April 16th we will do a special performance on the campus of Haverford College in Stokes Hall at 8 P.M. The event will be the premiere of our first chorale (which is, no doubt, not technically speaking a chorale, but who’s keeping score?).
05/06 – New York City – People who read Matmos liner notes will no doubt recall the gorgeous and spooky string arrangements that the composer Jefferson Friedman created for the Matmos track “Semen Song for James Bidgood” on The Rose Has Teeth album. On a forthcoming CD for New Amsterdam , Jefferson’s string quartets have been recorded by The Chiara String Quartet and paired with some Matmos remixes of same, and the release of this work is the occasion for two East Coast concerts featuring both ensembles. On Friday the 6th of May Matmos will play together with The Chiara String Quartet at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. Following from this, there are rumors afoot that we might also present this double header in Philadelphia on Saturday, May 7th too, so be on the lookout. Buy tickets here: https://secure.gigmaven.com/events/4644/orders/new
05/14-30 – EUROPE – Once we’re really warmed up from all of that, and once Drew has taught the final installment of his graduate seminar in the Department of English on “Early Modern Literary Ontologies” and M. C. has finished his fledgling semester teaching video at MICA, it’s time to get in a van and punish the people of Europe with a quadrophonic Matmos / John Wiese tour! We’ve loved John Wiese’s approach to sound design and noise forever, and Drew and John have been kicking back and forth a collaborative project for many years too, so it just makes sense to join forces and blow eardrums together. Adding immeasurably to the festivities, San Diego’s brightest hope Jay Lesser has agreed to be in Matmos for this tour too, so expect gnarled synthesis and bloodstained video cameras (a long story . . .).
14/05/11 Glasgow (UK), Old Fruitmarket 15/05/11 Birmingham (UK), MAC Art Centre * 16/05/11 Dublin (IE), Button Factory * 17/05/11 Belfast (UK), SARC * 19/05/11 London (UK), Auto-Italia * –>21/05/11 MILANO (IT) Leoncavallo* THIS IS A CHANGE! –>23/05/11 Rome (IT), Circolo degli Artisti * CHANGE OF DATE!! –>24/05/11 Bologna (IT), Scuderia * CHANGE OF VENUE! 26/05/11 Paris (FR), La Gaite Lyrique * 27/05/11 Brussels (BE), VK *# 28/05/11 Metz (FR), Les Trinitaires * 29/05/11 Berlin (DE), Hau1 * 30/05/11 Leipzig (DE), Centraltheater *
* w/ John Wiese
# w/ Oval
Drew is very sad that he will be missing Maryland DeathFest this year, but touring Europe with Jay Lesser and John Wiese will make up for missing Corrosion of Conformity’s reformation of the “Animosity” lineup.
06/04-05 – Los Angeles – This sounds like a lot already. But it’s not the end! We are pleased to be able to cryptically hint that we will be in Los Angeles on Saturday the 4th and 5th of June to participate in a very ambitious but top-secret event called “Art&Politics”, a two day combination of academic talks, dramatic and musical performance which Drew is in the middle of planning with Professor Kenneth Reinhard of UCLA. When the time is right, you’re going to hear a lot about this, as some pretty incredible people have agreed to take part. But that time is not yet upon us.
06/08 – San Francisco – If our gear holds out, we will play a show at our Alma Mater, The Bottom of the Hill. I believe our pal Wobbly will open for us…and probably play with us for a reunion of Simultaneous Quodlibet lineup. Did you buy that, by the way? You really should. It’s very dense, it’s sort of like three records in one…at the same time!
