Matmos Concert Review
San Francisco Duo Live in Madrid at La Casa Encendida April 22, 2007
Review of Matmos's April 22nd concert in Madrid at La Casa Encendida. Matmos are a pair of experimental musicians from San Francisco.
When a friend called me last Sunday and told me to come see some electronic music at the cultural center, La Casa Encendida, I expected local acts that would hopefully prove somewhat interesting. Little did I know that I had, more or less by accident, walked into a Matmos concert. Matmos are the San Francisco-based duo of M. C. Schmidt (Martin Schmidt) and Drew Daniel. Known for their unusual samples, from the sounds of plastic surgery to a (dead) cow's vagina played like a bagpipe to amplified crayfish nerve tissue, they have created five impressive albums of experimental sound. They worked and toured with Björk for her albums Vespertine and Medulla. Drew Daniel also influences the world of music as a contributor for Pitchfork.
The show started off with random noises coming out of speakers, sounding like an electronic musician's version of tuning instruments. Then M.C. Schmidt said, "A newborn child has no teeth. A goose has no teeth..." An un-vocoded version of "Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein," from their most recent album, last year's The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast. He then sampled some taps, pops, and clicks he made into the mic into a beat and things were underway.
During the rest of the one hour set they played other songs from The Rose Has Teeth as well as songs from previous albums and many improvisations. They stayed away from their poppier, dancier tracks, sticking to their more musique concrète-influenced improvisational work.
Drew Daniel had two Macbook laptops, running who knows what programs. M.C. Schmidt had a baby grand piano, Roland synthesizer, flute, and any number of random objects that he made sound with. There was also a guy with a guitar, laptop, and some sort of guitar-controlled synthesizer. All of this produced surprisingly little sound.
The computer-generated visuals projected onto a screen behind them were impressive. Pastel colors shifted and swirled. Flesh-like objects morphed into each other. Like the music, it was subtle, but well done.
Towards the end of the set, something resembling a beat started to emerge from the wash of sound. There were signs of head-nodding and toe-tapping. And then Matmos left. Despite a few screams for more, they did not return. In short, it was too short. I haven't seen other Matmos shows, but most of the show seemed like a warm-up. Just when things started to get good, they said good night.
Links:
La Casa Encendida - page for Matmos concert
