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April 11, 2006
Matmos
I'm not historically a fan of Matmos; there's an arbitrary quality about their sound that irritates me. That said, I did enjoy hearing the 2006 album The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast, which features a song about my favorite historical figure, Old Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. What more could you ask for?
Matmos - Roses And Teeth For Ludwig Wittgenstein
Matmos - Public Sex For Boyd Mcdonald
Matmos - Snails And Lasers For Patricia Highsmith
Recently on Comfort Radio:
Alien Army - Destroy
Elbow - Snooks (Progress Report)
Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street (William Orbit mix)
Posted by Scotto at April 11, 2006 08:00 AM
Comments
The element of arbitrary is some attempt to bring electronica out of the "strick programmable dance beat"
the larger IDM project is like that. It tries to push electronica beyond simple 'pragmatic dance' music. It's a little like the Jazz transistion from swing to bebop. The music tries to liberate itself from functional dance music into an 'art form' a music for its own sake, free from functionality concern.
of course most initial experiments are way too harsh and will take sometimes for the movement to find that magic sound. (how long does it take for Charlie parker sound to evolve into ... fusion/prog-rock? )
same with IDM. it is still searching for the right balance of sonic shape and rythm balance.
Posted by: squashed at April 11, 2006 10:39 AM
indeed, i agree with pretty much all of that. it's interesting to me how the truly stochastic experiments of something like harder core kid 606 or autechre are starting to evolve into what to my ears is sounding more musical without giving up all that texture - for instance, jackson & his computer band, or decomposure, both pull that off. this matmos release surprised me because it too is heading in that direction; i remember thinking matmos was kind of ruining bjork's sound, but this i can handle a bit. anyway, thanks for writing.
Posted by: Scotto at April 11, 2006 08:23 PM
The Ludwig refered to in the Matmos title is a famous early 20th century philosopher...not Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria.
Love your site & your taste by the way !
Posted by: art boy at April 13, 2006 11:24 AM
i was actually referring to a separate track on the album, called "banquet for king ludwig ii of bavaria". i didn't post that track because it was too long and weird.
i realized after the post went up that there might be confusion about this very thing, but i was too busy (read lazy) to fix it at that point. :)
Posted by: Scotto at April 13, 2006 12:54 PM
The last song on the album "banquet for king ludwig II of bavaria" was about the "mad king". This happens to be one of my favorite tracks on the album. It's very textural, well layered, contains superb transitions, and paints an excellent picture. The splash towards the end reminds me of someone "going off the deep end". Some samples were taken from cuts intended for the Patricia Highsmith piece.
Posted by: horn_girl at May 8, 2006 11:03 PM