Matmos
The Civil War

THE REVIEW

The warmongering American policy of recent years seems to have found its fiercest critics mainly in rock music (Radiohead and Pearl Jam above all). In contrast, electronic music has always given the impression of not paying much attention to political upheavals, appearing more obsessed with the search for new sounds or rhythms suitable for trendy clubs.

After ending their experiments (the previous “A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure” sampled the sounds of a surgical room), Matmos has produced a new work that can be considered in all respects a concept album openly aligned against the “lords of war” past and present. “The Civil War” retraces the major conflicts of the last two centuries, from the American Civil War to the recent Iraq, situations that change in era, motivations, and methods but, besides having the same chilling consequences of death, seem to potentially have the same soundtrack.

Andrew Daniel and Martin Schmidt start by manipulating English folk music; “Zock” and “Regicide” are martial marches marked by drums and bagpipes, traditional instruments dragged from the first notes into a fascinating sound clash with the advancing “musical new” represented by samplers and synthesizers.

The timeless and location-less battle, the preparation of which we witnessed in the previous notes, comes alive with “Reconstruction”, a track undergoing for several minutes a mutation worthy of the best Aphex Twin.
From “For The Trees” onwards, the atmosphere slows down, the tones become more placid, the elements that at the beginning dictated more incisive tempos are replaced by pedal steel guitars and banjo, at times it is country music being reinterpreted in an electronic key.

Except for the mad and ironic “The Stars And Stripes Forever” (the American anthem performed by a brass band composed of samplers), there is a strong impression that our journey is coming to an end and that Matmos is leading us to the inevitable calm after the storm, in a surreal post-war scenario.
Heart-wrenching “The Struggle Against Unreality Begins”, the piano of “For The Trees (Reprise)” is lump-in-the-throat inducing, emotional final acts of a heavy indictment that makes us rediscover the less cold and detached side of electronics.