CONTEST: Matmos In NYC

7/18 & 7/19 @ Le Poisson Rouge.

We have a pair of tix for both gigs.

E-mail us for a chance to snag 'em!

Winners will be chosen randomly on Wed (10am).

Visit Matmos on MySpace.

View their entire summer itinerary here.

MP3: Matmos - Rainbow Flag

Matmos Debuts New Video

Enjoy the first clip from Supreme Balloon (entitled 'Exciter Lamp') below.


MP3: Matmos - Steam & Sequins For Larry Levan

Matmos Announces Brief Summer Trek

All dates below. Thanks for the tip, Culture Of Me!

Jul 7 Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
Jul 10 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
Jul 12 San Fran, CA @ G.A. Music Hall
Jul 15 Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theatre
Jul 18 New York, NY @ LPR
Jul 19 New York, NY @ LPR
Jul 21 Toronto, ONT @ The Music Gallery
Jul 23 Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center
Jul 24 Detroit, MI @ Detroit Institute
Jul 25 Pittsburgh, PA @ Andy Warhol Museum
Jul 27 Chicago, IL @ Lakeshore Theater

Learn about their new LP (Supreme Balloon) here.

MP3: Matmos - Rainbow Flag

Matmos Drops Hints On New LP

Matador's blog explains: *The new album from Matmos finds the dynamic duo taking a holiday from conceptual responsibility, skipping the outré sampling antics in favor of a lighthearted “cosmic pop” record made entirely out of synthesizers. Leave it to Matmos to invent a hard and fast rule that they have to follow even when they’re just having fun: the creative restriction this time around is that Supreme Balloon is an ALL synthesizer album and no microphones were used at any point. That’s right, no household objects played in a percussive manner, no snails or blood or amplified semen, no acoustic instruments, no voices of famous people for five seconds, not even any half-way cheating with Vocoders.* The LP is out on 5/6.

Visit Matmos on MySpace.

MP3: Matmos - Rainbow Flag

Antony, CocoRosie & Matmos @ Warsaw: We Are Family!

I know you want to sing the next line of the song so go ahead...

Ok, now to the review.

I was completely misled thanks to the billing of last night's show! The Ali Forney Benefit show was billed as an Antony show with CocoRosie and Matmos as support. I was a little confused when CocoRosie graced the stage first around 8pm, as introduced by Murray Hill (great job by the way!), but didn't mind. Then Antony came on next, followed by Matmos. Odd if you ask me since Antony is by far the most successful talent on that bill, but on second thought since Antony curated the whole event, perhaps he felt weird headlining it as well. The Matmos guys came all the way from San Fran for the show! Perhaps they deserved the coveted spot of closing out the gig for that reason alone; I just wish 75% of the crowd didn't saunter out as soon as Antony sung his last note!

CocoRosie was in fine form last night. I've now seen the band 3 times and have gone from being totally disgusted by their stage presence and song structure, to absolutely adoring it. Last night only deepened my love for the sisters that make up the band. They played a good deal from Noah's Ark including 'K-Hole', but by far the highlight was 'Beautiful Boyz'. Antony joined them on stage for the ditty and it was flawless. I wished they did an extended version of the song because it was totally dead on last night. The ladies received much praise from the crowd which seemed just as excited to see them, as they were to see Antony.


Around 9:30 or so, Antony took the stage. Antony was in really good spirits last night. He joked about how embarassing he was on stage, how he longed for a dead drummer from the early '70s, and how he can turn any song into a melancholic one. The CocoRosie girls joined him on stage for the witty and hysterically funny new tune "Bouncy Balls". The entire set was perfect. Here's the setlist, the asterisks denote a new song:

My Lady Story
Cripple + The Starfish
*Kiss My Name
Spiralling
For Today I Am A Boy
*Bouncy Balls
*One Dove
I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy
Fistful Of Love
Hope There's Someone

Matmos hopped on stage somewhere around 11pm. Sadly as I mentioned earlier, much of the crowd had dissipated by the time the boys got ready for their shtick. They opened their set with one member literally blowing air through a straw and into a small bowl filled with water (as seen in the photograph below). After about 5 minutes of that, he threw in a packet of Alka Seltzer which made a throbbing sound, as you can imagine, and although it was a little cacophonous it was also pretty damn cool.


Pretty soon after this, Antony graced the stage yet again for 2 tracks with Matmos. This is when I got closest to the stage and snapped away.






Can't wait for their next benefit show! Hopefully Antony will curate it again.

Matmos @ Bang On A Can Marathon

Maybe marathon isn't the word.

More like an 8-hour experimental music romp.

Most bands on the bill I had never heard of before but I was aiming to be at the 'marathon' by 4pm to catch Matmos, otherwise known as, Bjork's backing bleepers and blippers. Based on Thom Yorke's Eraser, I bet he loves these guys.

San Francisco's best graced the stage with So Percussion (who were THRILLED to be playing with the band) for 2 numbers totalling almost a half hour in lenghth. The first track was a So Percussion song and the second number was "Rag for William S. Burroughs" off of the latest from Matmos. Antony was feelin' it. Yes, that Antony, minus the Johnsons. I woulda stolen a photo of him but he looked so content in his orange/yellow/black sweater and Boston Redsox cap (I KID YOU NOT!). I didn't have the heart to disturb him.

Being the Bang On A Can gathering, you better believe it, each performer had a different shtick involving, um, banging on a can. Matmos/So Percussion's set included multiple strikes to a Budweiser 12-ouncer. Look closely at the older Matmos guy, second to the left.

It was quite fantastic.

Here's the opening track of their new release, The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast, "Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein"

Anybody stay for the remainder of the festival to hear Amiina??