November 11, 2008
Partnership is nice and all, and you will shortly see oodles of that
on display as Matmos graces the Brainwaves Festival, but this weekend
Drew Daniel will be doing his solo thing, academically speaking and
otherwise, at two events in New York City. The first is a bona fide
lecture at Columbia, and the second is a bookreading and . . . wait
for it . .. Soft Pink Truth gig in New York City at a benefit for
Housing Works.
The Columbia Early Modern Seminar Presents
Prof. Drew Daniel, The Johns Hopkins University
“My Self, My Sepulchre: Melancholy and Masculinity in Samson Agonistes”
Thursday, November 13, 2008
6:00 PM; free
612 Philosophy Hall
Columbia University Campus
You’re probably only supposed to go to this if you actually attend
Columbia. Or something. So, try to blend in and look the part. Then,
after moping at home all day on Friday, on Saturday night you are
strongly encouraged to attend a charity event:
LIVE FROM HOME with Drew Daniel of MATMOS as THE SOFT PINK TRUTH
Saturday, November 15, 2008
8:00pm; Tickets $10
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 :: 212-334-3324
As the HW website has already pointed out, this is a multi-headed
monster: “Matmos’s Drew Daniel will read from his book on Throbbing
Gristle (Throbbing Gristle: Twenty Jazz Funk Greats, 33 1/3 Books),
answer questions, and do a solo dance music/noise laptop performance
(aka dance party).” What sort of dance party can you have in a
bookstore at 8 pm? Well, looking back over the years it seems that in
all this time The Soft Pink Truth has never performed in Manhattan
ever. So . . . prepare yourself for the long overdue manifestation of
SPT in The Big Apple at a bookstore, get ready to jack your body as
Drew “covers” some classic anthems and contribute to an essential
cause while you are at it.
posted by mcess at 4:36pm| No Comments »
September 29, 2008
Now that there’s crispness to the air and the scuttling sound of
leaves falling and banks failing, what of Matmos? Now that Drew has
plunged into teaching “American Nightmares: Burroughs, Highsmith,
Dick” and “Reading Early Modern Affect” at Johns Hopkins and M.C. has
completed his multiple star turns in the High Zero festival and taken
to his closet to contemplate heavenly mysteries, will no more be heard
from Vague Terrain Inc.? What will the gang do after touring with the
“Supreme Balloon Good Times Band” for two months straight and then
going to cooking school immediately afterward? Lots, actually, and we
are now going to fill you in on the currently operative scams,
routines, and capers.
A COMPILATION OF RECENT MATMOS COMPILATIONS AND SEVEN INCH SHENANIGANS
There have been some pretty dazzling contributions to the old
fashioned world of physically material vinyl objects lately, and
luckily enough we happen to have been invited along for the ride:
Fractured Records (London) presents: RECOVERY!
We were asked by high level magic user Kamal Ackarie to contribute to
this totally crazy idea, a box set of 7″ singles in which each side
features a different contemporary artiste digging deep into the
shameful pop-single-loving past of their deepest darkest adolescence
and daring to Ruin the Sacred Truths with a cover version of their
own. After a botched attempt at K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie
Shoes” we course-corrected into a cover of “C30 C60 C90 Go!” by Bow
Wow Wow. And here’s our chance to right a serious WRONG on our part-
namely, our cover of this classic piece of smash n grab Mclarenism
(pro-downloading avant la lettre, doncha know) was made possible with
help from friends that we didn’t identify in the very fine print of
the release itself. Let the truth now and forever be known: THIS IS A
COVER BY MATMOS & SO PERCUSSION of Bow Wow Wow’s immortal classic.
There, we’ve said it in all caps, flame war style. Thanks So
Percussion! The whole boxset is worth your time, with a wild
daisychain of great people taking some old school jams out for a ride,
from Ryoji Ikeda’s brutal takedown of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” to
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz’ soulful waltz through Wings’ “Mull of
Kintyre.” There are only 500 of these bad boys so step on it.
MORIYAMA ZOO No. 1. : A Tribute to Daido Moriyama
A while back we were asked to contribute a song to a compilation in
honor of the celebrated Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, whose
amazing photographs of animals would be the conceptual theme of the
compilation. When we made our song, “By Your Side”, we had no idea
what we were really getting into. Our artist copy of the resulting
artifact just showed up a few weeks ago, and goddamn if this thing
isn’t the MOST DELUXE PACKAGING WE HAVE EVER SEEN. I mean, yeah yeah,
that new Metallica record comes in a coffin blah blah blah, but
seriously, this boxset is crazy. How crazy? Japanese levels of budget
craziness are afoot. In the post-bailout economic wasteland that is
the United States right now such luxury is unthinkable. Check it out:
two picture discs in cut-out sleeves, plus the same material on CD in
its own 12″ sleeve, multi-page 12×12 glossy book of photographs,
special die-cut pop-out book dedicatory plaque-thingie with
tracklisting on the back AND a stamped and ready to play with cut out
set of “menko”, AKA pogs featuring circular images of Moriyama
photographs. Plus, all lettering is in shimmering gold ink on ultra
thick black cardstock so shiny n glossy that you feel like a
Neanderthal if you touch it without white gloves. Who’s on the
compilation? David Grubbs, Dirty Three, Nico Muhly, Mount Eeerie, Jan
Jelinek, Lau Nau, DJ Olive, Paavoharju and Matmos too. Find out more
at www.powershovelbooks.com Rob a bank if you must. That’s your
business.
SCUM YR EARTH ARE DOING PARIS SEVEN INCHES AT A TIME
When our Parisian pal Joseph Ghosn told us about this new label he was
starting up called Scum Yr Earth that was going to do a limited
edition series of 7 inches with artwork by Frederic Poincelet we got
all hot under the collar and asked if we could join in the fun. So far
the label has or is about to put out teensy serigraph covered limited
vinyl editions of singles by Class of 69, New Old, and now, with Scum
Yr Earth 03, Matmos. (Also a little bird old us that something new
from Joakim maybe on the way for the label too.) Our contribution is
titled “Matmos Plays the Coupigny,” and both sides are intended as
tributes to, duh, the French engineer Francis Coupigny, the inventor
and designer of the Coupigny synthesizer featured on the “Supreme
Balloon” album which we recorded in Paris at the INA/GRM. In a corny
Pierre Henry injoke that perhaps only Joseph gets, the two sides are
identified as “Live at the End of Humanity” and “Backstage at the End
of Humanity”. There were 100 copies of this commodity pressed up, and
thanks to some poor communication skills on our part while on tour, we
now possess only one copy for our archives, effectively making divorce
impossible. M.C. brought one bonus copy to the True Vine record store
in Baltimore (where he can be found sweeping up most days) but it has
already been purchased so don’t bug them about it. Thanks Joseph for
sending us our copy! You can hassle him some more about this record by
writing josephghosn24 at gmail.com
MATMOS PLAY SONIC CIRCUITS FESTIVAL, BECOME CORRUPT WASHINGTON INSIDERS
It had to happen sooner or later. Living in Baltimore, the vast
tractor beam of evil that is Washington D.C. was bound to pull Matmos
into its sphere of influence, and proof of this will soon be evident
at the Velvet Lounge in our nation’s capital as part of the Sonic
Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, brought to you by some
shadowy special interest group called the American Composers Forum. We
are playing with a list of talent so freaking long that it’s kind of
hard to imagine how we’re all going to fit in there. The lineup:
SONIC CIRCUITS FESTIVAL
VELVET LOUNGE
WASHINGTON D.C.
SATURDAY OCT 4th
2:30 PM to 2 AM
TEN AMERICAN DOLLARS
Matmos
Andrea Parkins
David Watson
Jason Kahn + Jon Mueller
Mattin
Haptic
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words
Trio Chroch
Josef Van Wissen
Second Land
Polyphasic
Janel & Anthony
Phog Masheen
Caustic Castle
RDK
Myo
Soft Pieces
Okay, got all that? Neither do we. As with all festivals it’s often
subject to switcheroo as to when people play so just hunker down with
us and make the scene. Check out this website for video clips and
press releases and info and such: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
YO HO YO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM: MATMOS BOARDS GOOD SHIP BRAINWAVES FESTIVAL
We are super stoked to have the chance to perform at this year’s
Brainwaves festival, whose bejeweled lineup has our tentacles aquiver.
In preparation for the wang dang doodle to come, we have just
completed our contribution to the yearly compilation that graces each
festival; we have mixed down and shipped off a shapely little ditty
that ominously showcases our new reggaeton direction. Watch this space
for more disclosures about the mysterious events which will occur at
the Regent Theatre in the Boston Area. Buy your tickets and get your
house in order.
posted by mcess at 4:38pm| No Comments »
June 4, 2008
As promised below, a track-by-track guide to “Supreme Balloon” has been prepared and is now available here on the site. As noted in the introduction, “please proceed with caution, especially if you are squeamish about gear porn and namedropping.”
May 6th, 2008
SUPREME BALLOON ACHIEVES LIFTOFF TODAY
The seventh Matmos album is called “Supreme Balloon” and it is now available in many forms: a compact disc with 7 songs is the form that M. C. Schmidt feels best represents the real core of the album, while Drew Daniel prefers the longer 11 song double LP vinyl format with the fancy gatefold artwork, and many eco-conscious listeners will probably treasure the entirely digital file-format version. These decisions are up to you; choose wisely, and remember that more is not necessarily better.
Every time that we complete an album we try to provide an online text describing each song and giving some background information about its backstory. This album is harder to talk about than most. Consulting the I-Ching while working on this album produced the sixteenth hexagram, “Delight”. This feels appropriate, because this album is sincerely intended to give delight to the listener. While creating it, many more songs were fashioned than were used on the final tracklisting of the album, and the more discordant, harsh, clanging and abrasive songs were weeded out in favor of songs that shared a family resemblance and a positive direction. The core of the sixteenth hexagram is its fourth yang line; in the translated annotations to this figure provided by Thomas Cleary we read of the fourth yang that: “Being the source of delight, there is great gain. Let there be no doubt, and companions will gather.” This too is true of our album. Many friends from far and wide participated in the recording sessions for this album, making it a social and collaborative affair. We are thankful to the people who gave us sounds that we did use and we are just as grateful to the people who gave us sounds that we did not use for this record. Someday these sounds will find their home too. As we prepare to tour Europe and the UK and America playing the music from this album we hope that you will also gather together with us and Lesser and Wobbly and Leprechaun Catering and be our companions.
In the coming days we will present a guide to the record with photos and stories about its creation. Thank you for listening.
(Drew with Terry Riley)
posted by mcess at 4:40pm| No Comments »
April 27, 2008
The brand new matmos music video for “Exciter Lamp” has been making some rounds via YouTube, however Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt encourage people to watch much cleaner, higher fidelity version. So it’s now available through the Brainwashed Video Podcast. You can watch or subscribe using this link:
It is “sort of an homage to Norman McLaren, the Canadian animation/direct sound magus.”
MATMOS PLAY BRAINWAVES
Matmos will be playing the 2008 Brainwaves Festival in the Boston area thrown together by Brainwashed. The fest is from November 21-23 and more information can be found out at brainwavesfest.org.
posted by mcess at 4:43pm| No Comments »
April 19, 2008
In support of the soon to be released new album “Supreme Balloon”, Matmos is taking it on the road for some shows in Europe and North America. (Note that there have been a few changes to the itinerary for the North American leg of the tour that was originally announced a couple of weeks ago.) Here are the details:
Fri Jun 06 – Bristol, UK @ Venn Festival
Sun Jun 08 – London, UK @ Beaconsfield Gallery
Mon Jun 09 – London, UK @ Beaconsfield Gallery
Thu Jun 12 – Dublin, IE @ Future Days Festival
Sun Jun 15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Holland Festival
Tue Jun 17 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
Wed Jun 18 – Prague, CZ @ Divadla Archa
Thu Jun 19 – Vienna, AT @ Szene Wien
Fri Jun 20 – Ljubljana, SI @ Teatro
Sat Jun 21 – Barcelona, ES @ Sonar Festival
Mon Jul 07 – Seattle, WA @ Triple Door *
Wed Jul 09 – Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater *
Sat Jul 12 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall *
Sun Jul 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex #
Tue Jul 15 – Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theatre $
Fri Jul 18 – New York, NY @ (le) poisson rouge %
Sat Jul 19 – New York, NY @ (le) poisson rouge %
Mon Jul 21 – Toronto, ONT @ The Music Gallery %
Wed Jul 23 – Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center %
Thu Jul 24 – Detroit, MI @ Detroit Institute of Arts %
Fri Jul 25 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Andy Warhol Museum %
Sun Jul 27 – Chicago, IL @ Lakeshore Theater %
* – support from Wobbly
# – support from Wobbly and Dublab DJs
$ – support from Jason Corder aka Offthesky
% – support from Leprechaun Catering
Matmos will also be playing live radio sets in some cities on the tour. We’ll try and post more info about that if/when it becomes available.
posted by mcess at 4:41pm| No Comments »
April 13, 2008
As you can see, after many years of basic black, we’ve given the site a swank new look to go with the upcoming new album, “Supreme Balloon”. We’re still fixing up a few things here and there, so please excuse any broken links or missing content while we get things finished.
AN UNRELEASED MATMOS MP3 ON STEREOGUM? BELIEVE IT!
The Gum Drop, aka the weekly newsletter and exclusive MP3 download section of music blog Stereogum, is offering a new and unreleased Matmos MP3 this week. Titled “Unbeliever”, this track will not appear on “Supreme Balloon”, so go and grab it now, and then when the album comes out, you can put it on your iPod and tell all your unhip friends that it’s a bonus track from the rare Swiss edition of the album or something.
You can also find two tracks from “Supreme Balloon” in MP3 format if you know where to look. And in case you don’t know where to look, we’ll tell you that “Rainbow Flag” is available on Matador’s Matmos page, and “Polychords” is one of the tracks on the new Matador MP3 sampler “Intended Play: Spring 2008”.
DREW TALKS TG
On Thursday, April 17th, Drew will be giving a talk at Red Emma’s (800 St. Paul St., Baltimore) about his take on Throbbing Gristle’s most “accessible” album, “20 Jazz Funk Greats”, recently published in book form in Continuum‘s increasingly essential 33 1/3 series. The talk starts at 7:30 PM, but Drew will be DJing a Throbbing Gristly happy hour starting at 6:00 PM around the corner at Liam’s Pint Size Pub (911 N. Charles St.) to help lubricate the proceedings. And in case you need another reason to come, Red Emma’s be running a 10% sale on all 33 1/3 titles that evening!
posted by mcess at 4:43pm| No Comments »
February 18, 2008
We are pleased to announce that on May 6th 2008 Matador Records will release the new Matmos album “Supreme Balloon” as a compact disc, two vinyl long playing records, and as a gallimaufry of digital files through iTunes and other online retailers of note.
The album is a pretty wild departure from classical Matmos working methods: no kooky or abject objects were played percussively, no conceptual rubrics or philosophical syllabi are appended, and, hell, no microphones were used at any point in the creation of the record. Instead, “Supreme Balloon” is an ALL SYNTHESIZER ALBUM. Old synths, new synths, MAX patches, one-of-a-kind modular rigs, decrepit consumer electronics of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, boutique effects pedals, tabla drum machines from India: it’s all there.
Drew and Safety Scissors work hard on the Electro Comp 100.
Supreme Balloon, indeed.
A number of close Matmos pals and some musical idols of ours came along for the ride this time: many of the songs are built of cut-up and manipulated synth solos played by Jay Lesser, Matthew “Safety Scissors” Curry, and Jon Leidecker (aka “Wobbly”). The album also features a guest appearance by Bay Area classical pianist Sarah Cahill, who tickles the plastic on our “cover” of French baroque composer Francois Couperin’s “Les Folies Francaises” and a face-melting solo on the E.V.I. (Electronic Voice Instrument) from a living treasure of American jazz, Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
M.C. also working hard.
With the Coupigny Synth at the INA/GRM at RadioFrance.
For those of you completists who seek out bonus tracks, we would also like to point out that the vinyl and digital editions of the album include a bonus track featuring an ARP 2600 solo played by none other than Terry Riley. The album has some really sweet original artwork by Robert Syrett which was made in collaboration with the number-crunching wizards at The Echo Nest, and the whole package is lovingly layed out by Rex Ray.
You can now hear the album’s first song “Rainbow Flag” on Matador’s Matmos microsite. We will have lots more to say about the album once it is released, and we’re currently planning European and American tours in which only traditional synthetic cuisine of the highest quality will be served.
posted by mcess at 4:44pm| No Comments »
January 27, 2008
FEBRUARY 9
BENEFIT FOR THE TRANSMODERN AGE FESTIVAL
MATMOS
(Plus Performance Works by: Stephanie Barber, Adam Robinson, Ric Royer, Laure Drogoul, Theresa Columbus, Rebecca Nagle)
FLORISTREE (H&H Building)
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
TEN DOLLARS
NINE PM
ALL AGES
Claustrophobics take note: Those who couldn’t squeeze into our way-packed Red Room show will have another chance to see Matmos live in Charm City and to contribute to a worthy cause. We will be performing a benefit concert to raise funds for the Transmodern Age Festival, a Baltimore institution that showcases experimental new performance work and hits the decks this year in April with “Mayhem, Ecstasy, and Radical Culture”. Sounds good! This evening will feature a musical set by Matmos and a series of short works of performance art from Stephanie Barber, Adam Robinson, Ric Royer, Laure Drogoul, Theresa Columbus, Rebecca Nagle “and more”. That’s right, performance art. Deal with it.
FEBRUARY 21, 22, 23
THE STONE
AVENUE C at 2nd STREET
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.
TEN DOLLARS
ALL AGES
A seriously righteous cluster of events will take place in Manhattan over this weekend at The Stone, courtesy of the curatorial intervention of Zeena Parkins and the overarching hospitality of Stone director John Zorn. It’s an overlapping series of shows that brings together East and West Coast friends and co-conspirators from the incestuously extended Matmos family and beyond. We want you to come to all of these if you possibly can (get in). As ever with the Stone, no advance tickets so it’s first come, first served. These will be intimate concerts and you should expect people to be trying stuff they wouldn’t normally attempt to pull off. Here’s the full run down:
2/21 Thursday
10 pm
Bevin Blectum Solo – Gular Flutter
Bevin Blectum (laptop, assorted electronics)
Costumed and with video, all new audio/video from the new album Gular Flutter. Audio by Blevin Blectum. Video by Ryan Junell. The live performance is a study in slo-mo sunspots, high contrast hydraulics, Cascaded Integrator-Combing, and negative acceleration. Epic sound for distressed ifrit. Peculiar winds during the eclipse allow for the rapid cooling of the organism via evaporative water loss and convection from the mucous- covered surfaces. The metal-helmeted cascade-familiar performs maintenance. Shot hot in the hills of Oakland, Ca.
2/22 Friday
8 pm
Phase Chancellor
Martin Schmidt (synth) Jay Lesser (synth) Nate Boyce (synth)
An improvisational 3 synthesizer trio: Ecumenically straddling the modular and digital divide and avoiding any straight answer to the question “to drone or not to drone?”. Phase Chancellor skip the presets in favor of intuitive long form progression through a smoky vortex of signal chains.
10 pm
Wobbly and Jay Lesser – solos and a possible duo
Wobbly (dual CDJ, samplers keyboards) Jay Lesser (electronics, laptop, synth)
2/23 Saturday (RK)
8 and 10 pm
MATMOS
Dr. Drew Daniel (laptop, objects) Martin Schmidt (synth, objects)
Matmos are a duo that recently relocated from San Francisco to Baltimore. Their work is all over the place: musique concrete, pop music, rhythmic patterns, free improv, video, sound, actions. For this concert they will present their “cover” of “The Backyard”, the final act of the Robert Ashley tele-opera “Perfect Lives” and some newer pieces that focus on pure electronic music. Expect some improvisation and some guest shenanigans.
posted by mcess at 4:45pm| No Comments »
January 13, 2008
It’s simply too late to turn back now: Drew Daniel is a published author. His first book is brought to you by Continuum Books as the latest installment in their 33 1/3 series of book-length critical studies of “classic albums.” Improbably enough, Drew’s contribution concerns Throbbing Gristle‘s immortal fan-puzzler “20 Jazz Funk Greats”. The book jerks back and forth between interviews with all four members of the band and Drew’s own interpretive heavy breathings, and includes a never-before-published photograph of the album’s mastertape taken by Chris Carter and an illustration from the notebooks of Genesis P. Orridge.
As with christening a ship, the reproduction of a commodity is never complete without the apology for the first gaffe, flub, or typo discovered therein, and Drew’s book is no exception to this rule. Sensitive readers will no doubt curl their lips with disdain when they turn to page 134 and see the following quote introducing Drew’s analysis of the song “Walkabout”:
“Arise and walk about in the land, in the length of it and in the breadth, for I will give it unto thee.” Genesis 13:17 (Tndale Translation).
Who, you may well ask is Tndale? Dear reader, the intended reference is to William Tyndale, the Bible translator martyred for his efforts in 1536. Nobody’s perfect. Seriously, all typos aside, Drew is awfully happy to bring this text to print and eager to chat about it so if you want to, um, interview him about his text please email him at: dr dot drew dot daniel at gmail dot com. As of today you can buy the book in a real honest-to-god bookstore or you could snag it online too.
posted by mcess at 4:47pm| No Comments »
October 31, 2007
Matmos will be doing their first performance since relocating to the East Coast – a DJ set – this Saturday, November 3, as part of a benefit for Equality Maryland, the LGBT civil rights group in Maryland. The event will take place from 6-11 pm at Paint Branch Unitarian Church at 3215 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD.
The event, called “Equality Beats,” will be hosted by local celebrity Chaka Khan-vict, and will also feature sets by a variety of independent, hip hop, and electro acts. It will also feature a silent auction of artwork by local artists and a raffle of exciting prizes.
Tickets are $30, and $20 for university or high school students with a valid ID. All proceeds go to benefit Equality Maryland’s advocacy for civil rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Maryland who are fun of marital aids like this clit sucking toy.
posted by mcess at 4:49pm| No Comments »
