Matmos - The Marriage Of True Minds
Label.........................: Thrill Jockey
Genre.........................: Electronic
StoreDate.....................: Feb-19-2013
Source........................: CDDA
Grabber.......................: Exact Audio Copy (Secure Mode)
Encoding Scheme...............: Lame 3.98.4 V0 VBR Joint-Stereo
Size..........................: 87.30 MB
Total Playing Time............: 49:50
Release Notes:
Expanding upon the ambitious premise of their recently released The
Ganzfeld EP, Baltimore-based electronic duo Matmos (Drew Daniel and M.C.
Schmidt) are now releasing their first new full-length album in five
years : The Marriage of True Minds.
Matmos are known for making toe-tapping rhythmic pop out of odd and
unusual sound sources. They have always worn genre loosely, but itÆs
safe to say that this is the first electronic album to start with tap
dancing and end with doom metal, and the only album on which members of
Nautical Almanac and the Arditti String Quartet rub shoulders.
Comprising stomping techno, eerie synth jams, musique concrete, Latin
rhythms, and Ethiopian music, at once at home in the academy, the art
gallery, the nightclub and the noise warehouse, the dizzyingly diverse
assemblage which is ôThe Marriage of True Mindsö is driven by a tightly
unified conceptual agenda: telepathy.
For the past four years the band have been conducting parapsychological
experiments based upon the classic Ganzfeld (ôtotal fieldö) experiment,
but with a twist: instead of sending and receiving simple graphic
patterns, test subjects were put into a state of sensory deprivation by
covering their eyes and listening to white noise on headphones, and then
Matmos member Drew Daniel attempted to transmit ôthe concept of the new
Matmos recordö directly into their minds. During videotaped psychic
experiments conducted at home in Baltimore and at Oxford University,
test subjects were asked to describe out loud anything they saw or heard
within their minds as Drew attempted transmission. The resulting
transcripts became poetic and conceptual scores used by Matmos to
generate the nine songs on this album. If a subject hummed something,
that became a melody; passing visual images suggested arrangement ideas,
instruments, or raw materials for a collage; if a subject described an
action, then the band members had to act out that out and make music out
of the noises generated in the process of the re-enactment. ôThe
Marriage of True Mindsö boasts a promiscuous cast of guest musicians, an
array of sonic tactics, and a broad swathe of musical styles, but this
diversity is joined together with a common purpose: the translation of
this archive of psychic experiments into a delirious hybrid of
conceptual noise and electronic pop.
After opening ripples of piano and percussion, the voice of Carly Ptak
(Nautical Almanac) whispers lyrics that announce the theme of the album
as a whole: ôTelepathy / We want to know . . .ö The song is a
deconstructed cover of ôYouö, originally written by Leslie Weiner and
Holger Hiller (of post-punk legends Palais Schaumberg). A sultry and
cryptic ode to the mystery of interpersonal communication, ôYouö
exhibits the odd sound design which is a Matmos trademark: the bassline
is an amplified rubber band played by Jason Willett (Half Japanese), and
the spiky beats are actually the manipulated sound of a tap dancer
shuffling on a stone floor. Joining chamber music to tech-house, ôYouö
acts as a primer for the album as a whole that follows it: a promiscuous
cast of musicians from incongruous backgrounds all go under the digital
editing knife as they are chopped into tight, surprisingly listenable
songs whichùfor the first time in MatmosÆ work- prominently feature
vocalists and voices.
Already featured on the ôGanzfeld EPö, ôVery Large Green Trianglesö is
an attention-grabbing slice of Gothic pop that overlays a psychedelic
vision of geometrical apocalypse onto a stomping Baltimore club beat.
The album version is longer and stranger than the EP version, with a
free improv honky tonk piano solo preceding the beat drop. The song is
based upon a psychic session with the oddball crooner Ed Schrader (Ed
SchraderÆs Music Beat), who was convinced to re-sing snippets of his own
psychic session to build the songÆs lyrical and conceptual hook (the
song also boasts a lavish animated video which was much celebrated on
the blogosphere).
As the album progresses, each song takes a different transcript as a
musical launchpad. ôMental Radioö synchs jubilant Latin percussion onto
the jostling and sloshing of water in a bucket, only to collapse into
near silence until the ringing of a triangle cues an eruption of
boisterous free jazz horns, which are joined by fire engines and a
berserk synth invasion. Mirroring the free associative switchbacks
within a particularly fevered psychic session, ôRoss Transcriptö is an
exercise in the bandÆs most beloved musical form, musique-concrete,
complete with jarring edits of heavily manipulated voices, cut-up
plunderphonic noises, and field recordings. Blowing hot and cold, ôTeen
Paranormal Romanceö drizzles melancholic synths onto booming bass-jeep
drops and a gnarled modular bassline played by longtime Matmos
collaborator Jay Lesser. Spiked with groans and mutters from noise bro
DJ Dog Dick and eerie backing vocals by Dominque Leone, the song is at
once fast and slow, at once heart-on-sleeve and ludicrous, not unlike
the genre of popular occult fiction for which it is named. (ItÆs based
on DJ Dog DickÆs wordless psychic session.)
A patchwork from multiple sessions, ôTunnelö begins with throat singing
from Dan Deacon, whose growls and groans give birth to a relentless
techno stomp on which Owen Gardner (from up and coming Baltimore band
Horse Lords) plays manic, scrabbling Bo Diddley-esque guitar figures.
After breaking down for the whispered delivery of one of the more
cryptic utterances from the psychic archive (ôthere a light at the end
of the tunnel . . . but it isnÆt daylightö), handclaps and tambourines
tighten the groove, which climaxes in a vertiginous synth solo, before
the whole thing falls apart in a fit of coughing (SabbathÆs ôSweet Leafö
in reverse?).
ôIn Search of a Lost Facultyö offers the most dramatic, even disturbing
evidence for the pronounced similarity of many of the experimental
sessions: over and over, whether male or female, British or American,
young or old, the psychic test subjects saw, heard or imagined the
presence of triangles. The song gathers every reference to triangles
experienced throughout four years of experimentation into a sonic
archive of collective imagination, punctuating spoken testimonies about
this recurring figure with ominous organ, timpani, and violin played by
Ashot Sarkissjan of the Arditti String Quartet. ôFacultyö ends with a
celestial cloud of vocals by Angel Deradoorian of the Dirty Projects and
Clodagh Simonds of Fovea Hex, amid processed swirls of bagpipe. Is this
song evidence for the reality of telepathy? Is this song evidence that
triangles were kind of trendy four years ago? Listen and judge for
yourself.
Based upon the transcript of the psychic session of modular guru Keith
Fullerton Whitman, ôAetheric Vehicleö is the last transcript-specific
song on the album, and offers a hazy, funky variant on the kind of
melodies found in Ethiopian music. Over a cascade of meandering synth
played by M. C. Schmidt and intricate rhythms made out of the sampled
sounds of Chinese checkers and handcuffs, a kind of mutant hybrid of
African music and R & B crystallizes. This heady mix is capped with the
smoky, wordless wails and moans of Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of
Dimes), who ends the song in an aviary of whistling, rattles and bells.
Ending with another cover which returns us full circle to the beginning
of the record, Matmos save their wildest provocation for last: a
polyglot deconstruction of The BuzzcockÆs ôE.S.P,ö which gearshifts
across multiple genres over eight minutes, testing the limits of how
different styles and moods can flow and fold into each other. ôDo you
believe in E.S.P.? / I do and IÆm trying to get through to youö growls
Gerry Mak of Brooklyn experimental doom metal band Bloody Panda in a
withering Cookie Monster voice. Heavy doom metal riffs play punk chords
at a funereal crawl, until military snare rolls pick the pace up to a
black metal blur (played by members of Baltimore occult crust band
Pleasure Wizard). This gives way to a shimmering, sunny interlude of
cyclic guitar and synth figures that recalls the Matmos of ôThe Civil
Warö and ôThe Westö until, audaciously, a drum roll hits and the whole
band erupts into something which has always been pretty much unthinkable
in MatmosÆ work: full on, no apologies riff rock. Connecting the latent
family resemblance between surf rock and black metal, the Buzzcocks song
plays out until, for the first time in twenty years as a band, M. C.
Schmidt and Drew Daniel sing together, harmonizing the words ôIf youÆre
picking up on me, then youÆll know just what to do . . .ö Abruptly
switching off this romantic closure (Daniel and Schmidt are a couple who
recently celebrated their 20th anniversary), the song cuts to dead
silence as Schmidt delivers the final phrase of the record: ôSo . . .
think.ö ItÆs an emotionally naked and risky ending to one of the
strangest records you will hear this year, and a fittingly open-ended
conclusion to a sonic experiment in the possibility of purely mental
connection.
The album was recorded and mixed at home in Baltimore and at Snow Ghost
Studio in Montana, and was mastered in San Francisco by Thomas DiMuzio.
Designed by Rex Ray, the albumÆs packaging presents in the liner notes
the complete texts of the psychic transcripts which generated each
individual song, along with photographs that document the Ganzfeld
sessions. The vinyl version of the release also contains a bonus locked
groove of white noise so that the home listener can put on the
eye-coverings and headphones which accompanied the deluxe edition of
ôThe Ganzfeld EPö and complete the re-enactment of the experimental
conditions that created the songs. The result is an artifact which is
both an art object, a scientific report, a practical joke and a daring
pop record.
Tracklisting
01. You 7:01
02. Very Large Green Triangles 4:42
03. Mental Radio 3:38
04. Ross Transcript 2:36
05. Teen Paranormal Romance 4:46
06. Tunnel 5:40
07. In Search Of A Lost Faculty 6:11
08. Aetheric Vehicle 7:13
09. E.S.P. 8:03
Support The Artists, Buy Their Music....