Herbert
Scale

THE REVIEW

THAT’S ALL POP!

Here he is, Mr. Matthew Herbert.
He was on my list: tempted by a couple of reviews read in DeB, I was planning to get his 2001 album, that “Bodily Function”, of which, not only here, I had read great things.
But nowadays, the new work has been released, so I chose to meet him on “Scale.”
And the encounter turned out to be a real surprise.
I had read about his work blending electronics with different suggestions and atmospheres, as well as the fact that he enjoyed great credentials both in his version more inclined to technological “orthodoxy,” and as an alchemist. And I knew that, as those pages of DeBaser suggested, he had previously resorted to “real” instruments, even using an orchestra.
But I didn’t expect to come across a record of most original pop. Fresh, tasty, traversed by a rich range of colors and settings, with a sometimes danceable attitude and a mood that shades also towards darker areas while however maintaining an unaltered lightness of touch that characterizes each episode, making the walk along the 11 tracks fascinating and pleasant.

The electronic component, with an impressive deployment of samples and tiny sound spores, sounds as natural as the chamber orchestra, in an integration that releases warmth, both in lively, pulsing renditions and in more expanded and relaxed ones, even where the mood veils itself in blue.
Herbert sets up environments that host pleasant vocal performances, especially those of loyal Dani Siciliano, occasionally supported by a couple of male voices. Simple but harmonious and never banal melodic lines and intertwines, embedded in arrangements curated down to the smallest sound detail, with a use of strings, winds, and “color” sometimes very evocative: a sort of environment by images where the songs indulge their ambivalent nature: between the “classicism” that informs them and the freshness of sounds and structures that animates them, acts the personal syntax of the English musician.
51.10’’ of modern pop elegance, which can be enjoyed as an uninterrupted background thanks to a homogeneous and fluid quality, or appreciated with more attentive listening, which will allow savoring the thousand details that cross them.

In short, a very pleasant encounter with Mr. Herbert.
To whom I advise you to give a chance, drawing from his refined freshness a small antidote to the exhausting effects of excessive summer heat.
But I believe it will also adapt well to the darker atmospheres of the next season, thanks to its chameleon nature, capable of climbing up and down the steps of time, crossing the past and the future, as happens in the tracks of “Scale.”

Ah, take a look in More Info: the tour of the record also touches Italy and I believe it will be interesting to meet him live, Mr. Matthew Herbert.