Matmos :: Metallic Life Review (Thrill Jockey), “Rust Belt” single & tour news

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My perspective on metallic matters was recently alchemized once again with some new prima materia from Matmos, and their song “The Rust Belt” released with clanging banger of a video by Jack Colbert ahead of the June 20th release of their newest album Metallic Life Review and summer tour.

New prima materia

The future of the rust belt has been on my mind a lot lately. Living here in the Midwest I see the rust all around me. Working in a library building sequestered in what one of my coworkers lovingly calls an “industrial hellscape” only means that I get to see shards of metal that have fallen off the trucks headed to the scrap yard down the street from us.

When I walk around my building at work I see a lot of weird, beautiful, chunks of metal. It makes me think these things should be on the cover of some kind of post-industrial album. On my way in to work I am off driving right behind scrappers in their beat up, paint peeling pick up trucks, trying to make a few dimes off of old washing machines and other derelict waste that they’ve picked up and are turning into a source of income.

This past winter I had to get a tire replaced. Driving in this part of Cincinnati is hazardous because of all the metal debris on the roads. Turns out there was a big old screw in the tire. Sometimes when you are living in the rust belt you are just screwed. As the great punk sage Henry Rollins noted, “The America is not a place that you live in, it is a video game that you survive.” A screw in a tire is nothing compared to what some people have to survive, but it is one of those annoyances that make you hyperaware of the entropy at work deep in the heart of the machine.

But getting screwed doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. It just depends on your perspective. My perspective on metallic matters was recently alchemized once again with some new prima materia from Matmos, and their song “The Rust Belt” released with clanging banger of a video by Jack Colbert ahead of the June 20th release of their newest album Metallic Life Review and summer tour.

Crafting exquisite concept albums ::

Matmos, along with fellow travelers Negativland, are adepts at crafting exquisite concept albums, revolving around a theme, and interrogating that theme and excavating all its associations with inquisitive ferocity. Metallic Life Review seems to be an album listened to in symmetrical parallel with their previous effort Plastic Anniversary. This album is all made with samples from things metallic, whereas the previous one was crafted from the petroleum that powers this industrial economy, all things plastic. Compared to plastic, rusting out may not be so bad after all. As with previous albums, they have brought together a number of key collaborators from the freakier end of contemporary electronica, noise and collage music.

Outfits from the eclectic underground ::

Among those are Thor Harris, probably a household name for all of you who have been collecting the music of Swans, Angels of Light and other related outfits from the eclectic underground of avant rock for decades. Harris swooped in under the Matmos circus tent, as Drew Daniels relates: “I had always loved Thor Harris‘s drumming – I saw him in Swans at Basilica Soundsystem, and I have been jamming the Water Damage records, which are incredible. So it was really sweet and unexpected when he wrote out of the blue to say that he liked Matmos and wondered if we might ever do something together; I sent him “Norway Doorway” and asked him to respond to it in any way so long as he was playing metal objects. When we got the takes we were really impressed – there was a lot of great material – and since “Norway Doorway” and “The Rust Belt” are the same tempo, we split what he sent in half and used some of it in the first song and some in the second song. In a way, his presence joins together the more militant, industrial sounding songs that launch side one. I’m so glad that he wrote to us.”

The force of rhythmic nature ::

If pounding metal is your thing, then “The Rust Belt” certainly has you covered, and I’ll be eager to here the other half of the contribution from the force of rhythmic nature that is Harris. Daniel offers some other words about the single from the new record. “This song evolved over a year of editing in which we kept adding and taking away and playing solos on top and chopping and re-mixing. The intro is entirely manipulations of aluminum cans and then it gradually expands to include more and more sounds, including us playing some “drum solos” on all the pots and pans from our own kitchen. The central riff is made out of a steel bar that M.C. Schmidt played with his fist and fingers. The ending sounds are manipulations of a steel railing from an underpass in Switzerland. The kind of foghorn-like tone is made with a steel slide-whistle that we are heavily processing.”

Now is the time to start thinking about getting your paws onto the new Matmos album. Do your part and help keep sound recycling alive. They are also going on tour please find the dates below. Hey, they are even playing in Pittsburgh and Louisville and you can’t get more rusted out than those Midwest towns.

Matmos Tour ::
May 23 – Wiltshire, UK – Acid Horse Festival
May 25 – Glasgow, UK – Baked Beans on the Doorstep
May 28 – Berlin, DE – Silent Green
May 30 – Pordenone, IT – Astro Club
Jun. 1 – Fano, IT – Bagli Elsa
Jun. 2 – Roma, IT – Monk
Jun. 4 – Genova, IT – Giardino di Mentelacole
Jun. 6 – Milano, IT – Museo della scienza
Jun. 7 – Bologna, IT – DumBo
Jun. 12 – Vienna, AT – Flucc
Jun. 14 – London, UK – Rio Cinema
Jun. 21 – New York City, NY – Knockdown Center
Jun. 25 – Philadelphia, PA – Solar Myth
Jun. 29 – Chicago, IL – Constellation
Jul. 3 – Louisville, KY – Art Sanctuary
Jul. 4 – Pittsburgh, PA Government Center
Jul. 8 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Jul. 11 – Los Angeles, CA – 2220 Arts
Jul. 16 – Portland, OR – Holocene
Jul. 20 – Seattle, WA – Here-After
Aug. 30 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
Nov. 22-28 – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, ES – Espacio Cultural el Tanque / Keroxen Festival