The world is filled with instrumental alt-rock acts, most of which fall into distinct categories. Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky have that cinematic thing down to a science (hence their inclusion in numerous movies and television shows). Groups like Pelican and Belong trod a more metallic path. Then there’s the textural Tortoise and their various off-shoots.
Matmos, an electronic duo formed in San Francisco and based in Baltimore, sounds nothing like any of these outfits. That’s because they have little interest in traditional instrumentation, and Supreme Balloon (Matador, 2008), their eighth album, builds on their reputation for experimentation–it’s no wonder they’ve collaborated with the endlessly iconoclastic Björk.
As an example of their ingenuity, on 2001’s A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, they incorporate the sounds of liposuction and on 2006’s The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, they turn to a cow’s reproductive tract.
This all-synthesizer, no-contact microphone release brings back the halcyon days of Perrey-Kingsley (best known for “Flight of the Bumblebee”), Wendy Carlos (the composer behind the futuristic score for A Clockwork Orange), and other synth stylists. Parallels abound with a few retro-minded modern-day artists, too, like Stereolab and Cornelius (sans the vocals).
According to the press notes, this seven-song set employs “the classic ’60s/’70s/’80s consumer electronic rigs of Arp, Korg, Roland, Waldorf, and Moog, and modular systems from Electro-Comp, Doepfer, and Akai.” Martin C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, an English professor at Johns Hopkins, also call on outside instrumental experts, like Jon Leidecker, Jay Lesser, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Sarah Cahill, and Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra, who plays the Electronic Voice Instrument (EVI) on “Mister Mouth.”
Except for the 24-minute title track, none of the selections tops four minutes, but no one would confuse them for pop singles. Standouts include the ever-changing “Supreme Balloon” and Couperin’s “Les Folies Françaises,” which recalls the score for Barry Lyndon. (Let’s face it: Kubrick’s films are one of the least acknowledged influences on modern music.) In addition, legendary minimalist Terry Riley appears on one of three bonus LP tracks.
Live Dates
7.7.08 Seattle, WA - Triple Door
7.9.08 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater
7.12.08 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
7.13.08 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
7.15.08 Boulder, CO - Boulder Theatre
7.18.08 New York, NY - (le) poisson rouge
7.19.08 New York, NY - (le) poisson rouge
7.21.08 Toronto, ONT - The Music Gallery
7.23.08 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center
7.24.08 Detroit, MI - Detroit Institute of Arts
7.25.08 Pittsburgh, PA - Andy Warhol Museum
7.27.08 Chicago, IL - Lakeshore Theater
Icelandic pop etherealists Sigur Rós have made available a free download of the song “Goobledigook,” the first track from their new record Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, which translates as, “with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly.” The new release will be available in its entirety on June 23rd.
A Not Safe For Work video of waify naked types frolicking in the woods is also available for viewing. The way these youngsters recklessly expose themselves to the Icelandic foliage makes a viewer truly hope that chiggers and poison oak are unknown to the geyser-glacier wonderland, or wherever they shot the thing.
This is the fifth full-length studio release from Sigur Rós (Icelandic for “victory rose” and named in honor of the birth of the singer Jonsi Birgisson’s little sister) in their fourteen-year history. Their second album was textured by palindromic string arrangements composed by keyboardist Kjarri Sveinsson, the only band member with any formal musical training. Which begs the question: if the music is the same backward as forward, how does the devil get his message across?
Distinguished by Birgisson’s girly falsetto and his cello bow guitar technique, Sigur Rós have summer touring plans that will take them from Mexico to Melbourne and on to Moscow between now and the end of August.
Russian Circles play within the confines of instrumental/metal/post-rock as it exists today, a game left to bedroom dwellers glued to guitars and practice pads in an attempt to master technique and then learn how to play through it. To them, bombast is language; the quiet/loud struggle in their dynamic range is all the vocalizing asked of them. It’s hard to be all too expressive with the limited vocabulary afforded them, one abutted by Helmet to the north, Explosions in the Sky to the south, and all manners of junior varsity pedalhoppers in between.
Technically, these guys are pretty much always on, in particular drummer Dave Turncrantz, with a surprising short game that favors taut, precise control over little touches like rim clicking and hi-hat rolls. Guitarist Mike Sullivan and bassist-for-hire Brian Cook, of Botch and These Arms Are Snakes, give him plenty of chances to execute pristine builds, as on the opening moments of the title track. He’s also wise not to overplay, but his bandmates on stringed instruments might do well to ignore that style and tear into it. Everything here is so cleanly executed, so devoid of flare and flavor, that the results are quite a chore to get through for anyone who’s been following the score for even a few years through the ascent of similar acts of suburban gravitas like Isis and Pelican. Sullivan employs far too much repetition in both his riff-writing abilities and his performance. He’s a human digital delay pedal, tapping away at his fretboard in circuitous patterns and shredding away on one riff, more concerned with keeping in rhythm than breaking off and exploring all the empty spaces these six orderly tracks create. Everything they lay down on Station reads cold and resolute, yet far too earnest and eager to please.
Despite glaring evidence to the contrary, instrumental rock music can indeed have something to say. Some believe it has the most to say of any rock or pop music out there, for the expressiveness and abilities of the musicians playing it to tell the tales a singer can’t. Russian Circles nail the abilities part so hard that it seems they forgot to consider the expression. These guys have peers which currently flank and outrank them, partly because they’ve all found that voice already. Best to check in with these guys when you’re certain the other shoe has dropped.
Inspired by René Laloux’s surrealistic feature The Fantastic Planet and David Lynch’s nightmarish melodrama Inland Empire, Monade’s third full-length has an earthy, yet otherworldly quality. Though the music is never as foreboding as those films, singer/guitarist/trumpet player Laetitia Sadier (who you may remember from Stereolab) wanders down some dark paths. In “Étoile” (“Star”), she imagines life in a mental institute (”Where I am told that inside me dwells a dirty monster”), while other songs reference voids, pits, darkness, misery, treachery, cruelty, menace, pain, and carnage (whew). Fortunately, she also peppers some joy and lightness into the mix. Sadiers bi-lingual lyricism (the booklet provides complete translations in English and French) and warm vocals merge with waves of retro-futuristic sound–evoking her past in Stereolab.
While few of the selections are catchy enough to qualify as singles, the ten track set works elegantly as an album. As Sadier explains, “I wanted to have one long track that would take its course and you would never hear the same part twice, just as one can never swim in the same river because of the elusive flow of the water.” Aside from the core quartet, guest musicians include Stereolab multi-instrumentalist Joe Watson and members of Momotte, ’80s outfit Luna Parker, and the Bordeaux Conservatoire. Highlights include the percussive “Tout en Tout Est Un” (“All in All Is One”) and the effervescent “Entre Chien et Loup” (”Between Dog and Wolf”).