Matmos

Matmos ranks among the most inventive and long-lasting ensembles in experimental electronic music, merging fresh approaches to sampling with intellectually ambitious ideas and a playful sense of humor. Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt turned an array of raw materials—including clippings of recently shorn hair, the boosted electrical signals from crayfish nervous systems, and the mechanical rhythms of laundry appliances—into compositions that referenced drum'n'bass, minimal techno, and glitch textures, especially across their initial releases such as the 1997 album Matmos. Additional influences surfaced in their adoption of American folk traditions alongside medieval forms for 2003's The Civil War and in their nod to vintage synthesized sounds for 2008's The Supreme Balloon. The pair consistently anchored their sonic experiments in timely cultural subjects, as when 2001's A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure probed connections between cosmetic procedures and technological mediation through recordings of plastic surgeries, when 2005's The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast offered sonic depictions of pivotal LGBTQ individuals, and when 2019's Plastic Anniversary addressed environmental shifts with both levity and foreboding. Entering the 2020s, the duo demonstrated their skill at honoring and reframing the past on 2022's Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer, a tribute to the Polish experimental polymath, and on 2023's Return to Archive, which drew from Folkways Records holdings.

The project originated as a transatlantic cassette exchange while Kentucky-born Daniel, previously linked to the Rodan/Rachel's predecessor King G & the J Crew in the early '90s, resided in London. Schmidt helped establish the avant-garde electronic outfit X/I and collaborated with the San Francisco experimental collective IAO Core that included participants from Amber Asylum and Tipsy; he also co-directed the New Genres program at the San Francisco Art Institute. Daniel and Schmidt cultivated both their personal and artistic alliance, issuing the self-released 1994 cassette In Lo-Fidelity, a set of fragmented 8-bit samples. After the pair relocated to the City by the Bay for Daniel's doctoral studies, their 1997 self-titled debut—appearing on the Vague Terrain imprint they founded—incorporated crayfish neural impulses among its elements to generate varied IDM patterns. On 1998's Quasi-Objects the duo reshaped everyday audio captures, whereas the next year's The West converted acoustic sources that spanned violin to Jew's harp into effervescent electro-funk.

Following the positive response to The West, Matmos joined Matador Records and delivered 2001's A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure. Built around samples of plastic surgeries and additional clinical interventions, the release's scope and mordant wit attracted wider critical approval. For 2003's The Civil War the artists drew from medieval sources and 19th-century American folk idioms, folding in acoustic elements such as drums, brass, and a hurdy-gurdy within politically engaged pieces. The subsequent year they further manipulated material from the A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure sessions on Rat Relocation Program. Throughout this period Matmos also partnered with Björk on Vespertine and Medúlla plus related live performances; she reciprocated by contributing to their 2006 album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, an assemblage of "audio portraits" of influential gay and lesbian figures that additionally featured Antony of Antony and the Johnsons and Kalonica McQuesten.

After moving to Baltimore, Daniel and Schmidt adopted an exclusively electronic focus for 2008's The Supreme Balloon, paying homage to '60s, '70s, and '80s electronic pop through vintage synthesizers and appearances by Sun Ra Arkestra's Marshall Allen and Keith Fullerton Whitman. That same year they joined Lesser and Wobbly for improvised sessions first aired on Hollow Earth Internet Radio, which later formed the 2010 album Simultaneous Quodlibet, before collaborating with So Percussion on that year's Treasure State. The duo supplied remixes for Jefferson Friedman: Quartets as performed by the Chiara String Quartet in 2011. Amid these endeavors Matmos pursued parapsychological research that underpinned 2012's The Ganzfeld EP and the next year's full-length The Marriage of True Minds, both issued by Thrill Jockey.

For 2016's Ultimate Care II, Schmidt and Daniel returned to foundational methods by sampling their washing machine and enlisting Dan Deacon, Half Japanese's Jason Willett, and Horse Lords members for additional input. Three years afterward Matmos resurfaced with Plastic Anniversary, assembling tracks from objects that ranged from poker chips to trash bins. Incorporating a high school marching band, Deerhoof's Greg Saunier, and Drugdealer's Brooks Kossover, the March 2019 release aligned with Matmos'—and Daniel and Schmidt's—25th anniversary. The following August they released The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form, a three-hour composition assembled from contributions by 99 participants that encompassed Oneohtrix Point Never, Herbert, Yo La Tengo, and David Grubbs together with Schmidt's former San Francisco Art Institute students and online forum users.

Matmos' subsequent album involved sampling and reassembling works by Polish composer, theoretician, critic, and playwright Bogusław Schaeffer alongside live playing from harpist Úna Monaghan, multi-instrumentalist Ulas Kurugullu, and Horse Lords' Max Eilbacher. Commissioned by the Instytutu Adama Mickiewicza, May 2022's Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer traversed dub, glitch, and dark ambient within its layered constructions. Schmidt and Daniel were next invited to mine the Smithsonian Institution's Folkways Records archive for their 14th album. Marking the 75th anniversary of Folkways' establishment, November 2023's Return to Archive applied the Matmos process to audio from non-musical releases such as Sounds of Insects, Sounds of the Junk Yard, and Voices of the Satellites and included input from Aaron Dilloway and Evicshen.