Return To Archive - Matmos: Review
is an experimental electronica duo who have become well known for their highly conceptual albums. That usually consists of a common origin among all the sampled sounds on the album. Examples from the past have included medical equipment and things made of plastic. Now, the duo were given access to the archives of Moses Asch, who spent decades collecting the sounds of the world through field recordings.
Review by Lav:
This is SUCH a Matmos concept. For a pair of musicians who have long been capable of extracting unpredictable and genuinely experimental sounds and textures from everyday objects, giving them access to a massive amount of field recordings like this must have been like a kid in a candy store. I'm surprised the duo resisted the urge to make 10 albums. So needless to say, I was pretty excited about this project even though the previous Matmos album wasn't one of my favorites. But on the album, the pair deliver a similar, if slightly improved caliber of music from their previous effort.
The singles from this album are all three great in their own right. Injection Basic Sound leads the album off. with watery percussion that I absolutely love and weird but genuinely magnetic vocals. It still my be my favorite of the three singles. Mad-Dauber Wasp was the first one to drop and I like it quite a bit. The harsh buzzing and booming background sounds contrast really well. When the song kicks off into its most intense passages it's immensely satisfying. Finally, there's Why? another highlight of a single with a dizzying variety of sounds pairing this punchy groaning percussion textured samples running the full gambit from naturalistic to mechanical.
Speaking of that contrast, it comes back in a great way on Lend Me Your Ears. From the bird noises to the glistening chimes to the grinding electronic beat every part of the song is so precisely textured and there's so much intrigue throughout. I'm also pretty fond of the closing track Going To Sleep. It's Matmos' vision of one of those guided sleep tapes and unsurprisingly, it's a playful and occasionally quite scary reimagining that I can't picture actually helping anyone fall asleep. I appreciate the conceptual angle a lot though they make the most out of the samples they have and it works well as a closing track.
Unfortunately, the album has some other diatribes I'm far less fond of. Music of Noise? is an interesting idea with a variety of what I think are vocal samples though sometimes it's honestly hard to tell. The absolute scream that cuts into the song and toils away for a surprisingly long time around the midpoint is admittedly very distracting and occasionally actively painful with headphones on. I appreciate the variety of sounds on the song but actually listening to it isn't all that compelling.
I'm also not crazy about the monster 13-minute title track Return To Archive. While I've appreciated the pair taking a more sparse and ambient angle in the past, this song just isn't all that compelling to me. On an album whose most interesting moments are when it's using effects and sonic texture to warp something into entirely unrecognizable form, the lack of layering and compelling texture on this song just wears me down across 13 minutes.
I like a lot more of Return To Archive than I don't. The singles continue to stand out and some of the most thematically dynamic moments among the deep cuts make for huge highlights. But the duds on the project hold it back from achieving its full conceptual potential. Once again I like quite a bit about what a Matmos album has to offer, even if it doesn't ultimately reach the same peaks of their best work. 6.5/10
For more electronica check out my review of James Blake's Playing Robots Into Heaven
