February 9, 2001

Matmos : A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure

The kind of thing that gives the avant-garde a good name.

8 / 10 We live in a world where a string section is considered a positively baroque musical flourish; where any suet-fuelled rock band can stick a DJ behind them and claim to be broadening their horizons. Just how puny these ambitions are, however, is thrown into sharp relief by the very fact of Matmos' existence. For Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt, the thrillingly creative San Franciscan duo behind 'A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure', limits are just something they once read about in a book, a state of mind that leads to their gloriously ludic experimentation.

you can probably guess the source....

What could be flash gimmickry is given depth and dynamic not only by the pair's intellectual rigour (using the sound of someone remodelling their body to model art is what Brian Sewell and his ilk would probably call a "jeu d'esprit") but also the fact that these tracks like to groove as they think. 'Spondee', built around samples of a tape used to test kids' hearing, is almost a house extravaganza, while the blip-and-bubble of 'Ur Tchun Tan Tse Qi' sounds like a short-circuiting To Rococo Rot. Best of all, 'California Rhinoplasty' features a nose flute.

The kind of thing that gives the avant-garde a good name. And the medical establishment a bad one.

Victoria Segal

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