Matmos have been creating music using the most unusual sources and approaches for over twenty years. The duo of M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, partners in life and music, have to date made music out of anything from washing machines and varied surgical procedures to human skulls and rat cages, usually paired with instrumentation. In line with their love of unconventional sound sources, their upcoming album, Plastic Anniversary, draws from one element, plastic. All the sounds on the record are extracted entirely from plastic objects, including Bakelite dominoes, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap and more. There’s human elements as well guest contributing to the album including members of the horn and drumline sections of the Whitefish Highschool Bulldogs from Whitefish, Montana and Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier. The songs on the album are described as “a volatile and vibrant suite of poppy plastic electronics”, with its closing track “end[ing] in an acknowledgement of the planetary price yet to be paid.”
Plastic Anniversary is out on March 15th through Thrill Jockey, and Matmos are teasing it with the brilliant and bouncy ‘Silicone Gel Implant’. Like the title suggests, the bassline sounds derive from silicone breast implant samples. Here it is.