Matmos is an experimental

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

duo originally from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

but now residing in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing twelve full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with

Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and based in Chicago. History Richards started the label in 1992 with $35,000 of family and personal capital, while ...

in 2012. The name ''Matmos'' refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film '' Barbarella''.

Notable work

In 1998, Matmos remixed the

single

Alarm Call In animal communication, an alarm signal is an antipredator adaptation in the form of signals emitted by social animals in response to danger. Many primates and birds have elaborate alarm calls for warning conspecifics of approaching predato ...

. Subsequently, Matmos worked with Björk on her albums '' Vespertine'' (2001) and '' Medúlla'' (2004), as well as her ''Vespertine'' and ''Greatest Hits'' tours. In November 2004, Matmos spent 97 hours in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as ''artists in residence,'' performing music with friends, musical guests and onlookers. The live album ''Work, Work, Work'', essentially a "best of" collection of the session, was released as a free download from their website. Matmos gained notoriety for their use of samples including "freshly cut hair" and "the amplified neural activity of crayfish" on their first album and "recorded the snips, clicks, snaps, and squelches of various surgical procedures, then nipped and tucked them into seven remarkably accessible, melodic pieces of experimental techno" for their album ''A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure''. In 2011, Matmos participated in a programmed evening of events with the visual arts organisation

Auto Italia South East Auto Italia is an artist-run project and studio in Bethnal Green, London, England. It commissions and produces new artwork, collaborating directly with emerging artists. Throughout its history, Auto Italia’s work has taken many forms, ranging ...

. The event was produced in collaboration with record labe
Upset The Rhythm
and included contributions from experimental electronic musicians Jon Wiese and Birds of Delay. Matmos have since collaborated with a large number of visual artists and arts organisations, including Cafe Oto an
Metal
In 2015, Matmos appeared in the documentary ''

Soundhunters ''Soundhunters'' is a transmedia musical project created by Nicolas Blies and Stéphane Hueber-Blies (aka the Blies brothers), Marion Guth and François Le Gall, broadcast on the Franco-German channel Arte in 2015 and deployed internationally w ...

'' directed by Beryl Koltz and broadcast on the Franco-German channel

arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...

as well as on many channels abroad.

Personal lives

M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel are also a couple, as stated in an interview in ''

BUTT Magazine ''BUTT'' is a biannual magazine that features photography and interviews about alternative gay and queer culture and sexuality. Historically, the magazine has been marketed as for gay men. ''BUTT'' was founded in 2001 by Gert Jonkers and Jop van B ...

''. Schmidt formerly worked as a teacher in the New Genres Department at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

. Daniel received a Ph.D. in English from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

with a dissertation on the literary cult of melancholy directed by Janet Adelman. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of English at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. This brought the band to relocate their home base to Baltimore in August 2007. Daniel also has a personal dance music project,

The Soft Pink Truth The Soft Pink Truth is an experimental house music side-project from Drew Daniel, one-half of experimental electronic music duo Matmos. Daniel started the project on a dare from Matthew Herbert that he could not produce a house record. ''Do You P ...

. He is a contributing writer to the online music magazine

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

, and wrote an essay about the

Throbbing Gristle Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in 1975 in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. Evol ...

album '' 20 Jazz Funk Greats'' for the Continuum Books series '' 33 1/3''. Both Schmidt and Daniel appeared in the Sagan music film ''Unseen Forces'' by Ryan Junell.

Discography

Albums

EPs

* ''

Full On Night '' Full On Night '' is a collaborative EP between Rachel's and Matmos. It was released on Quarterstick Records in May 2000 and contains two tracks. Matmos remarks that: :"The Precise Temperature of Darkness" is a reconstruction of "Full On N ...

'' Split Disc with

Rachel's Rachel's were an American chamber music group that formed in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1991. Former Rodan guitarist Jason Noble played music individually and referred to himself as Rachel's but then began collaborating with core members violist Ch ...

(2000, Quarterstick) * '' California Rhinoplasty'' (2001 Feb 12, OLE-501) * '' Rat Relocation Program'' (2004) * '' For Alan Turing'' (2006) * '' The Ganzfeld EP'' (2012, on

315)

Limited edition

* '' Matmos Live with J Lesser'' (2002) * '' A Viable Alternative to Actual Sexual Contact'', as Vague Terrain Recordings (2002, Piehead Records) * "A Paradise of Dainty Devices: interludes, micromedia & sound edits" (limited edition of 100, for their "Wet Hot EuroAmerican Summer Tour", 2007) * '' Polychords'' : Promo Single released on Matador * '' I Want Snowden/Sheremetyevo Breakdown Blues'', split single with the Disco Yahtzee Empire (2013)

References

External links

*
Matmos page at Matador Records
*
Matmos at Myspace
{{Authority control Electronic music groups from California Intelligent dance musicians Folktronica musicians American electronic music duos Male musical duos Queercore groups LGBT-themed musical groups American LGBT musicians Musical groups established in 1995 1995 establishments in California Thrill Jockey artists Matador Records artists Locust Music artists