The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises In Group Form - Matmos: Review
is an American conceptual electronica duo known for their abstract sampling and concept albums like A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure and Ultimate Care II. The band released an album just last year but have been busy since with a release from the Drew Daniel solo project The Soft Pink Truth earlier this year and not this massive 99 collaborator, 3 hour long record.
Review By Lavender:
It is absolutely no secret that I love Matmos. Not only have I always been vocal about my love for records like A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure and The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast plus I really enjoyed the album the band released last year Plastic Anniversary. I was surprised to see this quick of a turnaround especially considering the Soft Pink Truth record but I certainly wasn't expecting nearl 3 hours of new material being dropped on this ambitious and huge project. Despite the scope of the record being so grand there is so much rewarding material here that reminds me of all the reasons why Matmos is one of the best acts in all of music right now, not just their niche of experimental electronica.
Tackling this behemoth of an album was a long taek but thankfully the 44 songs here are split up into three discs to help make taking the record on a little more palatable. The first disc is pretty good even if it hits a snag right at the end, but even some of its less impactful tracks manage to fit in with it's overall progression perfectly. Cold Open is just that, dropping you into the record with a simple but effective piece of abstract electronica. The song has a huge variety of detailed textured samples warping in and out of it's core percussion loop and does a good job of getting the records mission statement off to a good start. I, Voxelman is a short, jittery and off kilter follow-up that maintains the first songs aesthetic and helps it transition into something even more alien. I love the mysterious sound effects and abstract noises but it all gets even better on the next track Moteswarm. The song replaces that percussion with a whacked out bassline that sets the tone for the entire track. While this is a definitely a cool down moment from the sonic development the record put on display through the first few tracks it fits perfectly and ends the albums introduction off on a high note.
Adam's Apple hits the ground running with crashing percussion and what even sounds like guitars fighting through saw samples and slamming symbols just to be heard. It's a sonic assault but not a dissonant one as everything manages to fit together really nicely. Athens New Guinea Gas Can Japan opens up softly enough before briefly exploding with metallic samples only to settle back into an almost weird ambience of collected sounds. It never settles down again despite introducing a metallic fuzz that the second half of the song works around, it is certainly Matmos at or near their strangest. Thyrsus starts off very abstract before building a genuinely catchy tune around some chopped up vocal samples for a cloudy almost pop song that I really enjoy.
Circle Of Swords is the longest song on the first disc and it works in two halves. It starts off as a jittery and unsettling blend of full bodied keys and clapping with a wandering synth passage hanging in the mix. The second half transitions into a hip hop flavored beat and drops the instantly recognizable vocals of Clipping's Daveed Diggs. However Matmos has chopped up his performance down to the literal individual syllables which makes what he is actually rapping pretty impossible to make out. Despite all of this I find it strangely appealing and really easy to listen to and when paired with the great spoken word vocal samples that separate his verses you get a killer song. Virgin Unspotted and the last song on the disk Verminiatures are both shorter transitional type moments that hold up decently on their own but ultimately only serve as supplementation to bigger songs on the record.
No Concept is an uptempo track with rich and detailed percussion alongside some pulsating bass hits. The song transitions and travels through numerous very distinct phases in between its harder hitting core passage which makes for a great track. In The Shape Of Beasts is guided by some distant jungle drums and fast paced jittery electronics. It's a song I enjoy indulging with even if it doesn't blow me away as much as some of the other songs here. cocktail Party How Glad Am I is a track I absolutely love. It has the super interesting sensation of feeling like being at a cocktail party in the 60's spy movie and trying to find the enemy agent among party guests and I couldn't enjoy it more.
The closing quarter of the first disc is where most of the weakest tracks come out starting with Revelatory Mint Clot. This is one of the only tracks here that doesn't do much for me even in the context of the record. The farty synths and cheap sounding electronics are certainly composed well but don't ass up to anything particularly compelling. Western Clot Rider has a really basic percussion loop that drives most of the song and it gets old kind of fast. The brief abstract vocal samples don't help pick up for it either and the resulting track feels completely lost. I'm Fine I'm Fine is a fever dream of a track with mom and dad robot voices fighting over a dissonant country flavored instrumental. The song should definitely come with some kind of trigger warning though for what I;m not sure.
Disc 2 is the weakest of the three but despite that it has numerous highlights throughout. Dancing Your Animal gives the record an all of a sudden taste of free jazz with swarming brass instrumentation buzzing all over the track. It builds up momentum really well and was one of the tracks I was always excited to come back to. Nice Men In Stable Relationships is genuinely one of the catchiest things here as the drum loop at the core of the track is insanely infectious. Even the vocal samples placed over top are super smooth despite their robotic tone. This song stays as one of the coolest and most unique experiments on the record as well as one of my favorite tracks. Freindsylum kicks off with a spacey drum loop that reminds me of the title track from Kids See Ghosts but abandons it pretty quickly. What it settles down into it a more rigidly structured track with pretty keys and strange synth loops that I end up enjoying.
The Void At The Center is almost a house track with how persistent the keys and groove are. It's one of the easier tracks to get into with how the groove slips in and out of the mix alongside the rich array of existing sounds. Sarabande blends an abstract bassline with some much more tangible synths front and center. This is one of the most instrumentally dense songs on the record and I really enjoy it for both the memorable soundplay and great progression. Platformalism samples the start up drums from Netflix log-in and the static from HBO in order to make a conscious statement that goes over pretty well. I think it's a cool unique way to go about it that feels very Fitter Happier in the streaming age. I'm On The Team closes off the disc with claps and EDM style bass hits. Like many of these tracks it devolves into sheer chaos pretty quickly but this one does it in a way that feels like a purposeful descent to end off this part of the record.
Adepts is a pretty abstract song centered around a core percussion loop but mixing in chimes, distortion and chopped up vocal samples. It certainly gets the second disc off and running in a hurry but I find it hard to think about it much after it's off. Maybelism is a pretty strange detour that reads like a video aliens would show you to brainwash you. It has wiry synths and unintelligible vocals that makes for a short and strange moment. Speaking of strange that's all I can really say about Let Us In which clocks in at under two minutes and makes a few major structural transitions from a drum loop driven piece followed by some airy and abstract vocals. I Know What I Saw is a track that seems to be centered around the idea of alien abductions with distant clangy percussion and robotic voices recounting their experience. Once again the song is strange but the conceptual nature of it keeps me reeled in even when the sounds on their own don't. The Dead City Of Telphar gets off to a pretty routine electronic start but has a breakdown around mid point where everything turns completely chaotic. There is a digital fuzz wailing away in the background with barely there vocal samples fading in and out. The song is an experience on its own but not one that I think is all that compelling after a few listens.
Unfortunately some of the worst tracks on the whole record turn up here starting with Garden Of Tall Boys one of the least eventful Matmos songs I think I've ever heard. It features soft guitar plucking backed with soft vocals that aren't really all that impactful. lo!Lavender River Karez is a track that has drawn a lot of attention because of the listed Yo La Tengo feature. The resulting song however is one of the most sparse and nearly ambient on the entire project. Honestly I would have been excited for the idea in concept but the execution here leaves a lot to be desired. The track just feels like a break in the middle of the madness but all I want to do is dive back into the record. Reciprocal Realms doesn't do much for me. While the echoed keys are cool the rapid fire vocal samples are much more annoying and the song breezes by without making much of a string impression on me.
While the first disc is pretty good I think the third disc may be my song for song favorite here as it's made up mostly of highlights. Blessed Order Of is a fantastic track that's first up here with spiraling layers of distorted sounds that can be both crushing and so intriguing as you try to pick apart the little details. The second half of the song transitions into a much harsher and more apocalyptic sound by making things clearer and allowing the full horror of this array of sounds creep intot he track. The result is disturbing and intoxicating. Goodnight Loving Bose Ikard introduces a western sound with sparse mixing and rattling dusty strings. The track is genuinely catchy and almost danceable with its core groove, while I didn't expect this I do appreciate it. Boomchicka is the longest track on the entire record at just over 13 minutes and it gets off to a fantastic start. The percussion drives you through an array of beautiful key blips and synth sounds, it never sounds challenging and is incredibly easy to get lost in. The tracks momentum comes and goes throughout its runtime at one point introducing some distortion laced keys and later bringing back the western style acoustic guitar but it never stops being enjoyable and engaging.
Extraterrestrial is another song with an alien theme although this time the vocals are much more abstracted. Despite this the consistent synth line doesn't sound very scary or other-worldly. I think the song is ultimately both pleasant and surreal enough to be rewarding. Circle Of Shivers is another track with some amplified synth lines and an array of culturally unique instrumentation. Even though I can't quite pin down exactly what all of the instruments here are they come together in an incredibly refreshing way for another sonicallu unique highlight. Out Of The Serpent's Mouth is the first and longer of two back to back tracks which feature Oneothrix Point Never. It opens up with some very icy synth lines that are just left to hang in a huge open space. It gets even more ethereal when small whines of instrumentation introduce themselves throughout parts of the track. The song is dark and brooding even if its 6 minute runtime feels a touch long. The second track with OPN Warm Opening is even better. It's a fittingly warm and infectious piece of glitchy techno that really does sound like a great meeting of the minds between the two artists and stands out as one of my favorite moments here.
It Isn't Necessarily The Case is a pretty fantastic track built around a tight drum loop that is driving and fun, plus the perfectly placed vocal samples that surround it are placed perfectly to give the song a tangible groove that I love. Elsewards starts off like it will be ambient but ends up sounding like a Bibio instrumental as it blends a very natural sound into its electronic bleeps and bloops. It's a sweet moment just before the finale of the record. All Of The Powers Lie Quiet is a really good closing moment I like quite a bit. It uses drawn out synths and vocal samples to make a genuinely melancholic feeling that the record is ending and after nearly three hours it really does get to me. The song is beautiful but textured and detailed as well for one more highlight at the end.
While there are some shorter transitional songs that don't do much for me the only real disappointment in disc three is Tworivers Run. It abandons the sound of the track before it right away but doesn't bring much of its own to replace it. It spends a surprising amount of its runtime working a quiet hummer refrain to dust only to replace it with some short-lived guitar right at the end. I don't really understand the placement of the track and it would help the record flow a lot if it had been cut out.
The Consuming Flame is a monster 44 track nearly 3 hour long project but it never stop feeling like Matmos. They are pushing their unique and often highly conceptual sound in so many new directions across this track it sounds like a weirdest hits compilation from a decades long career. It's a testament to the band, their creativity and their collaborators that the record turned out so good and that so many of its tracks can stand toe to toe with their best material. Like most records in this style not every moment of the incredibly long runtime is completely worthwhile but the creativity, variety and consistency of this record makes it special, and an indulgent but ultimately rewarding listen. 8/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
It is what it is and nothing more. 4/10
For more experimental electronica check out my review of Nicolas Jarr's Telas here
