Search - Matmos :: West (Reis) (Dig)

A Shining Example To The Glitch Community

Dirk Hugo | Cape Town, South Africa | 03/14/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So "glitchtronica" has become all the rage - sounds sourced from digital synthesis and atonal samples are replacing traditional instrumentation in an attempt to extend the sonic palette and move the contemporary scene beyond the confines of twelve-tone conventionality? Well, you only need to subject yourself to the likes of Funkstörung, Pole, Oval and Fizzarum for long enough to realise that the vast majority of this stuff is a one-way ticket to sonic tedium, perpetuated by those who hide their creative shortcomings behind a façade of maverick punkishness. Thankfully, Matmos are an antidote - a fascinating hybrid of conventional and other-worldly sound sources that seeks to re-invent notions of melody, harmony and rhythm rather than pretend that such concepts have become redundant. This is dense, challenging and superbly textured music that rises well above most releases on the electronic scene - way up there with the best that Autechre and Arovane have had to offer."

Music for a Dying Star

J. Broomfield | Brooklyn, NY USA | 08/15/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With a library of sources as vast as a stadium must seem to an ant, Matmos stitch together a sonic afghan to keep you warm during Ragnarok. Well, okay, it's not all that violent. But with the kind of innate compositional understanding associated with loop/sample masters like Boards of Canada (but more syncopated) and Milk Cult (but more harmonic), Matmos create the kinds of sounds that make your parents look up and say "honey, your record's skipping," because they don't know that a skipping CD sounds much, much worse than their vinyl platters did. Decaying string loops that fold into themselves like nascent supernovae. The soundtrack to your motherboard's birthday party, if it invited all its bizarre Appalachian relatives. Tones that may be organic, may be computer-generated, and may be some kind of godless, sexless progeny of the two. This is what Godspeed You Black Emperor might sound like if they were less political and more computer-literate. This is what plays over the PA system when your subway car careens onto the airport monorail track on a collision course with Deep Blue."