You spin me right round, baby / Right round like laundry, baby
February 23, 2016 10:36 PM   Subscribe

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.
posted by Going To Maine (16 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
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")
posted by aubilenon at 10:48 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


They have also remixed Current 93
posted by deadbilly at 10:52 PM on February 23, 2016


(No supremeballoon tag? are you balloonist??)
posted by aubilenon at 11:19 PM on February 23, 2016


> "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.
posted by ardgedee at 4:16 AM on February 24, 2016


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 …
posted by scruss at 5:20 AM on February 24, 2016


This is great. Every time I read an interview with them, I feel like they are my people.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 6:42 AM on February 24, 2016


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 :)
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:02 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


(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…)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:05 AM on February 24, 2016


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.
posted by Nelson at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


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
posted by lubujackson at 9:11 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


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!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:18 AM on February 24, 2016


YAAAAAAY! Thanks for this! And I did not know they're just up the road in Balmer!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:25 PM on February 24, 2016


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.
posted by mrgrimm at 4:58 PM on February 24, 2016


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.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:24 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


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.
posted by bongo_x at 12:01 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


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.
posted by Juliet Banana at 12:25 AM on February 25, 2016


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