Excitable: Matmos’ “Exciter Lamp and the Variable Band” from their new album, Supreme Balloon (Matador).
While you were dozing, the rabidly talented Matmos quietly slipped out of town, relocating to Baltimore, MD., from their longtime home in San Francisco’s Mission District. I recently caught up with MC (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel as they drove through the Northwest on their current US tour, which stops in SF on July 12 at Great American Music Hall.
SFBG: I’ve been enjoying the record – it has this great Wendy Carlos/Switched on Bach quality to it, which is a departure, no?
Martin Schmidt: We take turns being in charge of the record – and this was my turn. I wanted to go away from our shtick – like we’re the goofy sound band – and I thought a simple short cut to that would be to make the rule that we would use no microphones. It quickly turned into a synthesizer record from there. We love, love, love, love Wendy Carlos, and I don’t mean just Switched on Bach, we love her compositions as well, like Sonic Seasonings and the Clockwork Orange stuff and so on, so we figured we couldn’t do this without a nod to her.
SFBG: So the Carlos influence was very conscious…?
MS: We’re not DFA but I must admit I think a lot of our music is the result of wearing our record collections on our sleeve. I don’t mean DFA, I mean that guy in LCD Soundysystem. He’s the most, “I took all my records and boiled them down…” I think we’re a little like that, too. Guilty, guilty…
Matmos perform “Rainbow Flag” from Supreme Balloon in Baltimore on Feb. 9.