Drew Daniel Plays the Sound of MATMOS + RAZMOTCHIKI KATUSHEK

Friday, June 10, 2022   
IN OK/OUT KO!
Doors open: 20:00
Showtime: 20:40
Damage: €12

Statement Matmos ;

Sadly, one member of Matmos tested positive for COVID last night. The other two members of the traveling party have tested negative both last night and today. Because we are here and want to share some of our work with you while ensuring that we do so safely, for tonight’s purpose at OCCII the concert will be “Drew Daniel Plays the Sound of Matmos”, a program that will include a six channel presentation of the “Regards Boguslaw Schaeffer” material. M.C. Schmidt will not be present as he is recuperating. Any audience member who wants a refund will be refunded, please check your mail for details. We thank you for your understanding and your support.

 

MATMOS (US, Thrill Jockey)

Experimental / Avant-garde / Sound Art / Field

The two sound Fetischist of the celebrated sampling duo MATMOS hit OCCii AM*DAM this June with their new album: A sound portrait of polymath Bogusław Schaeffer, taking us from the utopian 1960s Polish avant-garde to the contemporary dystopian cultural moment through a wreck of modernist composition, sixties tape music, seventies dub, industrial music, postrock and dark ambient.

Matmos’ practice of creative constraint has made them one of the most consistently exciting acts in electronic music. Having assembled 99 collaborators for their previous album The Consuming Flame, on their new album Baltimore-based electronic duo Matmos focus upon just one person: Polish polymath Bogusław Schaeffer. Celebrated in his native land but not widely known beyond, Schaeffer innovated for decades across the boundaries of classical composition, electronic experimentation, and radical theater in playfully form-breaking ways. At the suggestion of Michal Mendyk of the Instytutu Adama Mickiewicza in Warsaw, Matmos were given access to the entire catalogue of Schaeffer’s recorded works to use as they saw fit. Neither performances nor remixes, the resulting encounters between past and present take tissue samples of DNA from past compositions and mutate them into entirely new organisms that throb with an alien vitality. What emerges across this suite of eight new songs is a composite portrait of the utopian 1960s Polish avant-garde and the contemporary dystopian cultural moment regarding each other across a distance.

The new record sees the duo make use of classic works by Polish avant-garde artist Bogusław Schaeffer, CHECK:: https://thequietus.com/articles/31086-matmos-detail-new-album-regards-ukony-dla-bogusaw-schaeffer

Flight to Sodom / Lot do Salo

Like the anagrams of the letters of Bogusław Schaeffer’s name that were re-assembled to create some of the song titles, the album itself is a musical re-assemblage of component parts into possible but unforeseen new shapes. Adding harp from Irish harpist Úna Monaghan, erhu, viola and violin from Turkish multi-instrumentalist Ulas Kurugullu, and electronic processes from Baltimore instrument builder Will Schorre and Horse Lords wunderkind Max Eilbacher, the resulting arrangements constantly toy with scale as they move from the close-mic-ing of ASMR and the intimacy of chamber music to the immensity of processed drones and oceanic field-recordings that close the album. Offering a “life review” of production styles, Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer builds temporary shelters out of the panoramic wreckage of modernist composition, sixties tape music, seventies dub, eighties industrial music, nineties postrock and dark ambient, 2000s era glitch fetishism, and contemporary post-everything collage sensibilities.

The contrary poles of humor and morbidity for which Matmos are known show up on the album’s distinct sides. Balancing structure and texture, side one of the LP is spiked with plunderphonic surprise edits and unexpectedly pop pleasures, while side two opens out into more extended, sprawling and ominous forms. On the opening track “Resemblage / Parasamblaż” the choral harmonies and analogue electronics of Schaeffer’s work jostle against distinctly contemporary sub-bass drops and spiky high-end fizzes. But just as often historical dividing lines seem to blur, soften or melt, as when “If All Things Were Turned to Smoke / Gdyby wszystko stało się dymem” cuts and refolds fragments of harp and aquatic musique concrète from Schaeffer’s 1970 composition “Heraklitiana” into a faintly swinging polychronic elegy. Throughout, nostalgia is repudiated in favor of creative re-use.

To facilitate the transcultural exchange that is the album’s essential premise, all song titles and liner-notes are provided in both English and Polish. The album was mastered by Rashad Becker and features illustration and design by Robert Beatty.

 

The Quietus have picked Matmos’ Regards Bogusław Schaeffer as their album of the week, with a lengthy positive review by Kevin O’Rourke:

“That Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt have been making music together for so long, and that their music has been so consistently good (and, perhaps more importantly for experimental electronic groups, that their music has been so interesting) for so long really is remarkable.”

The album was reviewed in the most recent print issue of The Wire (issue 460, June 2022, which just landed), with a glowing write-up from Leah Kardos. The page in the reviews section also features a photo of the duo alongside the review. I have quick scans attached, and I should have the PDFs soon.
“Reformed, reassembled and woven into new musical textures and sonic fabrics, Regards Bogusław Schaeffer makes use of Schaeffer’s sounds in anarchically, colourful, elaborately playful, impressively chaotic ways.”
 
“[Regards Bogusław Schaeffer] creates a fascinating dialogue across time and space, between technologies, cultures and centuries.”
 

“One can’t help but be in awe of the production mastery on display and the confidence with which Matmos have turned a man’s creative remains into a freshly expressive musical instrument.”

Bandcamp have published a lengthy deep dive into Matmos’ catalog, which includes a write-up of the new album:

“No matter what sounds these partners in life, love, and avant-garde head-fuckery choose to grind up, Matmos albums are defined by their deft musical technique, always amounting to more than the sum of their endlessly surprising parts.”

 

“Artistic passions, histories, friendships, fears, and moments of incredible chance—listen close, and you can hear so much more in Matmos’s work than simply the things you can see or touch.”


Bookings are closed for this event. No tickets will be sold at the door