Matmos - Return to Archive '2023

Tracks list

If you have spheksophobia, arachnophobia, or any other aversion to insects and
many-legged creatures, you would do well to avoid Return to Archive, as the
foundational material for much of this exquisitely weird album is recordings of
bugs. Lots of bug sounds here, friend. While they sometimes can resemble musical
instruments, for the most part, the bug sounds sound like bugs. Even for
Matmos—a group that has had such vast and varied experience with using
wildly unique found sounds as the basis for their records—Return to
Archive is a pretty extreme experiment. The duo of Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt
were granted carte blanche access by Folkways Records to their archive of
non-musical material held at the Smithsonian Institution. While not as
viscerally disturbing on a conceptual level as, say, the medical procedures
sampled on A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure, the fact that these two had the
chance to pillage these collections for material and decided that "the bug
stuff" would be a good organizing principle for this album means that there will
be some people for whom Archive is a complete non-starter. For everyone else,
these nine tracks provide a remarkable listening experience that's far more
dynamic and far-reaching than one may expect. Of course, it's not only insect
noises here—although "The Way Japanese Beetles Sound to a Rose" and
"Mud-Dauber Wasp" definitely get you sonically closer than you may
want—but also clips of lectures, test tones, field recordings, and even
the sounds of non-insect animals. All of this is exploded and reconfigured by
Matmos into new works that range from dense, esoteric collagism to electronic
music that verges on playful at times. They even finally get the chance to
answer the question, "music or noise?" and the answer here, at least, is
definitely the former. (Though there's plenty of the latter, too.) While the
title track runs more than 13 minutes and is almost cinematic in its
presentation, building from glitchy ambience to avant-garde arrhythmia to weirdo
soundscape, a cut like "Why?" verges on straight, four-on-the-floor electro,
showing that there's plenty that can be done with boxes of bug sounds, when put
into the right hands.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Matmos - Good Morning Electronics (1:05)
1.02 - Matmos - Injection Basic Sound (2:56)
1.03 - Matmos - Mud-Dauber Wasp (3:36)
1.04 - Matmos - Music or Noise? (4:12)
1.05 - Matmos - Why? (4:03)
1.06 - Matmos - Lend Me Your Ears (3:46)
1.07 - Matmos - Return to Archive (13:28)
1.08 - Matmos - The Way Japanese Beetles Sound to a Rose (1:28)
1.09 - Matmos - Going to Sleep (6:44)

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