March 1, 2012: Matmos: Musique Concrete Hour 1 - for Radio Boredcast

MATMOS: MUSIQUE CONCRETE HOUR 1 – FOR RADIO BOREDCAST

In response to the invitation to contribute sound, which somehow speaks to the stated theme of slow audio, we have decided to focus upon musique concrete and its aftermath. The original practitioners of the musique concrete tradition - which was a global phenomenon, and not simply a continental one as it often supposed - had to work carefully, methodically, and above all, slowly. In order to capture, manipulate, process and assemble their work, decisions had to be made and enacted, plans drawn up, trials conducted and errors removed. Lots of painstaking, hands on work stands behind each edit, each cut, each splice, each pass through a filter or into a process. The music soaks up and stores time, and it plays with time as a basic material. This music is both intensive and extensive in its demands upon its creators and its listeners. That said, we have not narrowly emphasized only the pioneers, but have sought to draw some connections between the first generation and subsequent audio, which seems to us to draw inspiration from this methodology. Slow down and enjoy.

Matmos is M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, aided and abetted by many others. In their recordings and live performances over the last nine years, Matmos have used the sounds of: amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, a bowed five string banjo, slowed down whistles and kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout groove of a vinyl record, a $5.00 electric guitar, liposuction surgery, cameras and VCRs, chin implant surgery, contact microphones on human hair, violins, rat cages, tanks of helium, violas, human skulls, cellos, peck horns, tubas, cards shuffling, field recordings of conversations in hot tubs, frequency response tests for defective hearing aids, a steel guitar recorded in a sewer, electrical interference generated by laser eye surgery, whoopee cushions and balloons, latex fetish clothing, rhinestones on a dinner plate, Polish trains, insects, ukelele, aspirin tablets hitting a drum kit from across the room, dogs barking, people reading aloud, life support systems and inflatable blankets, records chosen by the roll of dice, an acupuncture point detector conducting electrical current through human skin, rock salt crunching underfoot, solid gold coins spinning on bars of solid silver, the sound of a frozen stream thawing in the sun, a five gallon bucket of oatmeal.

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