Matmos
Metallic Life Review
THRILL JOCKEY
At their simplest, Matmos is the compact experimental electronic duo of Baltimore natives Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt who have forever made engorged music from unconventional samples and the unlikely sounds made from the striking or stroking of “quasi-objects,” as the title of their 1998 album describes them. At their most complex, ping-ponging Matmos songs such as their new “Steel Tongues” lullaby feature bass lines constructed via the clanging of a metallic salad bowl, the clinking of quarters, a glockenspiel, and the rhythm of a Newton’s cradle, all in dedication to what they claim is a “buried allegory about capitalism.”
How Matmos got to 15 albums—including their latest, Metallic Life Review, and not counting their run of EPs or their work in collaboration with Björk—and managed to make each one different, dramatic, and free, yet not without melodic rapture at their core (the aforementioned “Steel Tongues” is a delight), is as unique a prospect as a fingerprint. Composed wholly from the vibrations of loose screws, aluminum cans, pots and pans, and cemetery gates, moments such as the rattling “Changing States” emulate the radical rhythmic overdrive of drum ’n’ bass while offering a slow, ticklish melody and an opulent ambience that’s both celebratory and sad, then suddenly angry as the track sizzles to a buzzing, fuzz-toned finale.
A humorously titled “The Rust Belt” (OK, I thought it was funny) is the continuous five-minute sound of wet puckering noises with a speaker-shifting, blip-dub production echo, a Moroder-like silvery electronic wheeze, and a metallic slide whistle’s whir, with two additional players contributing “aluminum foil” and a mix of bowed ride cymbal and steel tongue drum. Apparently taken from a live field recording in Switzerland and processed through a Roland Space Echo, I couldn’t shake the idea of Daniel and Schmidt paying two additional people to play aluminum foil—isn’t that, too, a buried allegory about capitalism? The mind reels. Or, at the least, Matmos’ collective hive mind reels.
