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Matmos | |
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![]() M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel at Pitchfork Music Festival 2006 | |
Background information | |
Origin | San Francisco, U.S. |
Genres | |
Years active | 1995–present |
Labels | |
Members | M.C. Schmidt Drew Daniel |
Website | Official Site |
Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo formed in San Francisco and currently based in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing twelve full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician Björk, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with Thrill Jockey in 2012. [1] The name Matmos refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film Barbarella . [2]
In 1998, Matmos remixed the Björk single "Alarm Call". Subsequently, the duo worked with Björk on her albums Vespertine (2001) and Medúlla (2004), as well as the Vespertine and Greatest Hits tours. In November 2004, Matmos spent 97 hours in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as artists-in-residence, performing music with friends, musical guests and onlookers. The live album Work, Work, Work, essentially a "best of" collection of the session, was released as a free download from their website.
Matmos gained notoriety for their use of unconventional samples including "freshly cut hair" and "the amplified neural activity of crayfish" on their first album [3] and "recorded the snips, clicks, snaps, and squelches of various surgical procedures, then nipped and tucked them into seven remarkably accessible, melodic pieces of experimental techno" for their album A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure. [4]
In 2011, Matmos participated in a programmed evening of events with the visual arts organisation Auto Italia South East. The event was produced in collaboration with record label Upset The Rhythm and included contributions from experimental electronic musicians Jon Wiese and Birds of Delay. Matmos have since collaborated with a large number of visual artists and arts organisations, including Cafe Oto and Metal. [5] [6]
In 2015, Matmos appeared in the documentary Soundhunters directed by Beryl Koltz and broadcast on the Franco-German channel arte as well as on many channels abroad. [7]
In September 2023, the duo announced their forthcoming album Return to Archive , marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Smithsonian Folkways label, with a three-hour free concert at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. in which they remixed field recordings from the label's catalogue in octophonic sound. [8]
Schmidt and Daniel are a couple. [9]
Schmidt formerly worked as a teacher in the New Genres Department at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Daniel received a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation on the literary cult of melancholy directed by Janet Adelman. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University. [10] This brought the band to relocate from San Francisco to Baltimore in August 2007. Daniel also has a personal dance music project, the Soft Pink Truth. He is a contributing writer to the online music magazine Pitchfork , and has written the 33 1/3 book on Throbbing Gristle's 1979 album 20 Jazz Funk Greats as well as two books of literary criticism. [10] Both Schmidt and Daniel appeared in the Sagan music film Unseen Forces by Ryan Junell.
Year | Album details |
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1997 | Matmos
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1998 | Quasi-Objects
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1999 | The West
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2001 | A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure [11]
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2003 | The Civil War [12]
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2006 | The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast [11]
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2008 | Supreme Balloon
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2010 | Treasure State [13] (with So Percussion)
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2013 | The Marriage of True Minds [11]
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2016 | Ultimate Care II
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2019 | Plastic Anniversary [14]
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2020 | The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form [15]
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2022 | Regards/Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer
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2023 | Return to Archive
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Vespertine is the fourth studio album by Icelandic recording artist Björk. It was released on 27 August 2001 in the United Kingdom by One Little Independent Records and in the United States by Elektra Entertainment. Production on the album began during the filming of Dancer in the Dark. With Vespertine, Björk aspired to create an album with an intimate and domestic feeling, deviating from the brash sonority of her previous studio album Homogenic (1997).
Live Box is a set of 4 live CDs, a live DVD and a 36-page booklet by Icelandic musician Björk, released in August 2003. Each live CD roughly corresponds to one album in her four album solo discography. The 4 live CDs were later released separately in June 2004
A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure is the fourth studio album by American electronic music duo Matmos, released in 2001. The album consists primarily of samples of medical procedures, including plastic surgeries, liposuctions, hearing tests and bonesaws. The album maintains a sense of humour in contrast with the serious nature of the audio being sampled. The exception to the medical samples is the song "For Felix ", a piece dedicated to their deceased pet rat Felix, performed entirely on his cage.
Oval is an electronic music group founded in Germany in 1991 by Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, Frank Metzger and Holger Lindmüller. The group pioneered glitch music, writing on CDs to damage them and produce music with the resulting fragments. The project has been a solo venture by Popp since the departure of other members in 1995.
"Hidden Place" is a song recorded by Icelandic singer Björk for her fourth studio album Vespertine (2001). Written and produced by Björk herself, "Hidden Place" was released as the lead single from Vespertine on 30 July 2001 by One Little Indian Records.
"Cocoon" is a song by Icelandic singer Björk for her fourth studio album, Vespertine (2001). Written and produced by Björk and Thomas Knak, it was released as the album's third single on 11 March 2002 by One Little Indian Records. Inspired by her relationship with artist Matthew Barney, Björk wanted to create a record with a domestic mood. Working with Knak, she wrote "Cocoon", a song which is lyrically about a woman who describes making love with her lover during their post-coital hibernation, and includes frank sexual narrative related both explicitly and through over-sharing and metaphor.
J Lesser is the stage name for Jason Doerck. Between 2003 and 2006 Doerck was a member of the defunct laptop group Sagan, alongside Blevin Blectum, Wobbly, and video artist Ryan Junell.
The Soft Pink Truth is an experimental house music side-project from Drew Daniel, one-half of experimental electronic music duo Matmos. Daniel started the project on a dare from Matthew Herbert that he could not produce a house record. Do You Party?, the first album from the Soft Pink Truth, was released in 2003, and featured, among other original songs, a cover of Vanity 6's "Make Up".
"Who Is It" is a song recorded by Icelandic singer Björk for her fifth studio album Medúlla. It was released as the lead single from the album on 18 October 2004 by One Little Indian Records. Björk wrote "Who Is It" during the recording sessions for her previous album, Vespertine (2001), when it was known as "Embrace Fortress"; she left it off the album it as she felt it came from "a different family". The final version features throat singer Tanya Tagaq and beatboxer Rahzel, and lyrics reflecting the dialogue between mother and child.
Elizabeth Ardis Mitchell is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She began her career performing with Lisa Loeb as the duo Liz and Lisa, then founded the indie rock band Ida in 1991, of which she continues to be a member. As a solo artist, she has been recording and performing music for children since 1998.
High Places is a band originating from Brooklyn, New York, that subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, California. The band is a duo comprising multi-instrumentalist Rob Barber and vocalist Mary Pearson.
Minuscule is an official DVD released by Björk on November 3, 2003. The DVD contains a documentary offering a behind-the-scenes look at Björk and her touring entourage for the 2001 Vespertine World Tour. It includes interviews with harpist Zeena Parkins, the Inuit choir from Greenland, electronic duo Matmos, and an ongoing conversation with Björk herself about her recordings and her tours. The documentary is interspersed with live footage of songs from the tour shot by Ragnheidur Gestsdóttir, which themselves correspond to the performances chosen for the Vespertine Live album. A work-in-progress version of this documentary is to be found as a bonus feature on the Live at Royal Opera House DVD, which includes some material that is not included on Minuscule, such as the short interviews with composer Simon Lee.
The Greatest Hits Tour was the fifth worldwide concert tour by Icelandic musician Björk. It was launched in support of the release of her Greatest Hits album, her box set Family Tree, and to coincide with the release of her Live Box collection. The tour was supposed to take place one year earlier, but it was delayed as Björk gave birth to her daughter. The first dates of the tour were announced just two months after the birth. The tour kicked off with two shows in London on May 24, 2003, and ended with a rescheduled performance in Toronto on September 3, 2003. The tour visited Europe, Asia and North America with 28 shows in total. Björk wore outfits and creations from Jeremy Scott, Alexander McQueen and Shoplifter.
The Vespertine World Tour was a tour by the singer Björk that focused on her album Vespertine. She also performed songs from Debut, Post, Homogenic and Selmasongs. She performed 35 shows on this tour and 31 different songs. The tour band consisted of harpist Zeena Parkins, electronic duo Matmos, a Greenlandic choir and a 70-piece orchestra. The tour was released on DVD as Live at Royal Opera House and the concert held at the Orchard Hall in Tokyo, Japan was broadcast on Japanese TV-station WOWOW. A separate release, Vespertine Live, contains a selection of Björk's favourite performances from throughout the Vespertine tour, while a tour documentary, Minuscule, was also released.
The Marriage of True Minds is the ninth studio album by electronic music group Matmos.
Quasi-Objects is a 1998 electronic music album by Matmos, which followed their self-titled debut. Matmos created the album's music by incorporating ordinary sounds recorded around their home.
Vespertine Live is a live album by Icelandic singer Björk, collecting her favourite performances from her 2001 Vespertine World Tour. A companion album to 2001's critically acclaimed Vespertine, Vespertine Live was originally released in the 5 disc Live Box set in 2003 and was later released separately on 1 June 2004 by One Little Indian records.
Plastic Anniversary is the eleventh studio album by experimental electronic duo Matmos. It was released on March 15, 2019.
The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form is the twelfth studio album by experimental electronic music duo Matmos, released on August 21, 2020 through Thrill Jockey.
Return to Archive is the fourteenth studio album by electronic duo Matmos, released on November 3, 2023. It uses non-music material sourced from the Smithsonian Folkways collection in its composition; the album itself was commissioned to commemorate Folkways' 75th anniversary.