Comments on: You spin me right round, baby / Right round like laundry, baby

You spin me right round, baby / Right round like laundry, baby

Going To Maine — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:36:05 -0800

Electronic music couple Matmos have continued their career-defining run of making music by sampling weird and/or thematic sounds
(various stuff, "western" instruments, medical devices and procedures, martial instruments, things related to the lives of famous gays and lesbians)
by recording Ultimate Care II, a single piece of music made entirely of samples recorded from the selfsame Whirlpool washing machine.
A Pitchfork interview on the process. Music videos for excerpts three, five, and nine. A live performance on their own washer.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:48:20 -0800

Wow, Great! Also, it turns out I somehow I missed their previous album too! Time to catch up! (There's a lot of Matmos I like a lot, but maybe my favorite is their (and Clodagh Simonds's) haunting and weird rendition of Cockles & Mussels from the For Alan Turing EP, which also is filed under the category "related to the lives of a famous gays and lesbians")

By: deadbilly

deadbilly — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:52:16 -0800

They have also remixed Current 93

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 23:19:34 -0800

(No supremeballoon tag? are you balloonist??)

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 04:16:51 -0800

> "So if we are somehow able to tour with a washing machine and do laundry on stage, that would be amazing." I rarely go to shows any more but I would go to this.

By: scruss

scruss — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 05:20:53 -0800

I was going to make the cheap pinecone dig, but listened to the live piece, and it's rather lovely. I'll bet their backline requirements cause some head-scratching, though ...

By: jeweled accumulation

jeweled accumulation — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 06:42:01 -0800

This is great. Every time I read an interview with them, I feel like they are my people.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 07:02:34 -0800

I happen to be lucky enough to know Drew Daniel professionally, through his academic career. Not only is he a talented musician, but he's pretty fucking brilliant in general, and about as nice a guy as you could imagine. Of course, I hate him :)

By: Going To Maine

Going To Maine — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 08:05:21 -0800

(No supremeballoon tag? are you balloonist??) I didn't add a supremeballoon tag because I didn't link to any clips from Supreme Balloon. SB very deliberately avoids using samples of outside sources so I didn't think it made sense to. (Because that album deliberately strives to be the exception that proves the rule, I suppose I could have…)

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 08:44:27 -0800

I'm not sure which is more pretentious; Current 93 or making an album from washing machine sound samples. Happily Matmos reprocesses the washing machine enough to be interesting. I'm not sure even they can do enough to Current 93 to wash it of its Rimbaud angstteen stench. Perhaps they should try a fusion project, manipulating a recording of David Tibet reading a soggy copy of Les Chants du Maldoror after it got left in the back pocket of some Army surplus pants that went through the Whirlpool Ultimate Care II. Bonus music: Sonic Youth Washing Machine.

By: lubujackson

lubujackson — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 09:11:53 -0800

I might as well add my favorite performance from the "world's leading kitchen appliance rock group." I really can't recommend this enough: Hurra Torpedo - Total Eclipse of the Heart

By: lupus_yonderboy

lupus_yonderboy — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 09:18:07 -0800

I've seen Matmos over a dozen times, and every time they're incredibly entertaining and have "strong musical content" too. At one of their shows, I was listening to what sounded like an amazingly out drum solo and then MC Daniel commented, "That guy must be out in the street by now!" I realized that he had handed some random guy in the crowd the end of a piece of sticky tape - from a roll he had contact mic-ed - and told him to walk away... and that whole percussion solo was actually the sounds of the tape coming off the spool. Good times. I have plenty more such stories. They're the Jimi Hendrix of avant garde music - long may they live and prosper!

By: Johnny Wallflower

Johnny Wallflower — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:25:02 -0800

YAAAAAAY! Thanks for this! And I did not know they're just up the road in Balmer!

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:58:20 -0800

Been really digging this one since they started putting out the videos (there were 3 or so ... too lazy to link). OH YA THEY IN THE OPP. Well then buy it from Thrill Jockey. $9 MP3, $13 CD, $16LP. Not ridiculous prices these days.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 20:24:56 -0800

College radio memory: a drunk guy called the weekly middle-of-the-night abstract/ noise show and said he could make the same "music" by banging away on his washing machine. The DJ took the challenge and broadcast that performance live for a while. This is better than that, but I wanted to share that fond memory of mine.

By: bongo_x

bongo_x — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:01:54 -0800

I have 4 full sample sets of sounds made from washers and dryers. Yes, I have a problem. I misread this and thought it was telling me Matmos had made an album sampling Dead or Alive and was very excited.

By: Juliet Banana

Juliet Banana — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:25:59 -0800

Supreme Balloon has it's own theme, built around the vintage synths it was performed on. I've been lucky enough to see Matmos in many settings, playing danceable songs in a rock club, performing with a trio of experimental percussionists plucking at a cactus rigged with contact mics, demonstrating how to play an aquarium in a college classroom. Both MC Schmidt & Drew Daniel are affable, off-handedly hilarious and very very brilliant people. They're also, like, the cutest couple ever.