Label: Matador Format: CD
I respect any album that contains references to Harry Harlow‘s somewhat cruel tests on Rhesus monkeys. The album is Quasi-Objects by Matmos, and the track is of course “Cloth Mother/Wire Mother”. You may not be surprised to find that the baby Rhesus monkeys preferred the cloth mother to the wire mother. What is more surprising is the fact that someone felt the need to put it to the test.
Drew Daniel and M. C. Schmidt from San Francisco, prove that all the ingredients required for House music can be found in the kitchen. Quasi-Objects, as the name suggests, is made up of everyday objects and a few more exotic ones thrown in for good measure. “Latex” is made up of samples obtained from a stretched rubber tee-shirt, as you do. “Cloth Mother/Wire Mother” involves no monkeys, I have it on good authority that the sounds are in fact generated from guitars. This more of an act of faith than anything else. If I asked you to think of the sound a slide guitar makes “Cloth Mother/Wire Mother” wouldn’t be that it. The result is a curious and agreeable rendition of Neubauten‘s “Vanadium I Ching” for the new Millennium.
Ultimately, Matmos perform the impossible on many occasions and on many levels. You might have thought it impossible to produce an album that makes you think of Einstürzende Neubauten and Miami Bass simultaneously. You may very well have thought so, but Matmos are here with their whoopee cushions, latex tee-shirts, slide guitars, and broken record players to prove you wrong.
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