While sadly no human flesh was on show at XOYO, the return of Matmos to London was a highly condensed vision of nearly three years live preparatory work for new aforementioned album The Marriage of True Minds.
WITH every new beguiling Matmos album that conceptually bemuses, baffles and bewitches us every few years, comes the challenge of partners Drew Daniel and Martin “M.C.” Schimdt taking the new collection on the road to re-enact them live. When the albums in question rely so heavily on translating their mostly musique concrète nature, obviously compromises have to be made when dragging a show around the world. So you can’t help but wonder if deciding to produce an album that is essentially (in an extreme layman’s term) an investigation in to telepathic experiments on human patients was ever a fear when the realization that having to eventually reproduce this live became apparent.
We should have known better though than to ever doubt Matmos’ ability to use a live stage as a brief looking glass for an audience into their current sonic palette. Of course they’ll never be able to completely recreate a catalogue of work that features albums made of the noises of surgical procedures, household objects, turn of the (last) century period instruments and even the sound of gay porn. So over the last few years the gents have frequently invited musicians to join them to flesh out a more thorough “live” experience, while allowing Martin to usually take centre stage to dig out and play a variety of brilliant and bizarre objects, gadgets, toys and gizmos to drive that quintessentially Matmos experience. While Drew usually rocks out over his laptops and mixers, he has been known to frequently drop his trousers to utilise his bare backside as a human bongo ripe for live sampling and looping at the occasional gig around more frequent forays into live vocals.
While sadly no human flesh was on show at XOYO, the return of Matmos to London was a highly condensed vision of nearly three years live preparatory work for new aforementioned album The Marriage of True Minds. Back in 2011, one of London’s more undesirable areas (Peckham) hosted a sold out, jam-packed, one-off warehouse show which first gave us glimpse at the “Telepathic experiments” that had been hinted at in interviews frequently since their previous album, 2009’s awkward, anti-microphone, synth-pillaging Supreme Balloon. With a full “choir” of blindfolded volunteers up high on a mezzanine as Drew “sent” them the concept of the forthcoming Matmos album telepathically, the choir was assigned the task to simply all immediately vocalise the images that came to mind which was duly sampled and tweaked into a live composition back on the stage. While the rest of that gig didn’t really give more of an idea of how a whole album could be based around this concept, two years later we’re finally let in that the reactions to these experiments were what directed how the guys constructed the album, if not directly sampled into the album.
Back at the frustratingly designed live space at XOYO with it’s awkward angles and numerous blind spots from the bar to the stage, after a captivating and amusing game of ‘name that classic movie’ as People Like Us spent the opening 40 minutes remixing (musically and visually) a fine selection of iconic screen moments by the likes Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean etc, Matmos take to the stage while the bands newly appointed guitarist re-enacts a one-man version of the above live telepathy experiment to introduce the night. As he sits still under a red spot light with just the occasional drone coming from Drew’s laptops and Martin’s random chimes of a hand bell, a full ten minutes of this does begin to wear thin and threaten that we’re in store for more of an installation than a gig tonight. Not that an installation show would have been unwelcome, but a jam packed club basement of itchy footed East Londoners might not have been the ideal venue for such a show. Eventually though, the ice is broken as the welcome thumps and groans of Very Large Green Triangles unfold into a riotous few minutes as another new addition of a live drummer helps pound the message home. From this point on, the motley crew unleash an 80 minute set that manages to superbly showcase the bulk of the new album as well as digging up some old lost classics that are rarely performed live—all of them translating convincingly into this new live 4 piece format and even managing to get many of Shoreditch’s locals throwing shapes.
Balloon’s were blown, licked, squeaked and let off for a rare interpretation of “Latex from sophomore album Quasi Objects. A bowel of water was smacked and slurped through the mic to mimic the sound of liposuction for the brilliant
“Lipostudio… And So On” from landmark surgery album, A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure, and the beautiful medieval road-trip “Y.T.T.E” from The Civil War album gets a modern 4-piece facelift, all of which provided welcome fun highlights and all backed with a colourful, tongue in cheek collection of projected visuals. While much of the newer material was treated to arrangements that lean more to a straight forward live band interpretation than a literal conceptual one, the beautiful “love song” of “Aetheric Vehicle,” the pummelling techno and bass of “Tunnel” and thrash-metal-cum-electronic-country interpretation of the Buzzcock’s “E.S.P” all stand shoulder to shoulder with the older fan favourites. At all times, Martin is never short of a squeaky pig toy, an old zither, or random whistles to manipulate along with the others, and manages to achieve level footing with the laptops, drums and guitar going on behind him, avoiding futility or gimmickry but still with tongue firmly in cheek. Along with a couple of inevitable unrecognisable, unreleased archive tracks and an encore that had an audience joining in with their favourite monkey or tropical birdsong impression, we were done for the night and we’re left to fight our way out of the sweaty basement and into the cold of East London.
Matmos’ recent live history in London has been a strange one, finding the duo at some of the capitals most prestigious venues but inexplicably performing their (bare) asses to half-empty stalls on more than one occasion. So after their fair share of of hit and miss shows, the decision to go back to a pelting, sweaty intimate setting was an inspired one, as Matmos were clearly enjoying themselves as much as Shoreditch’s usual crowd of trendy twenty somethings enjoyed throwing their hands up to live telepathy, balloon bongos and the general seduction of Matmos at their live finest. Either that, or Drew’s David Blaine-esque triangular hand signals aimed squarely at audience members throughout the evening means that three years worth of studying telepathy has definitely paid off.
The Marriage of True Minds is available on Thrill Jockey.
