Matmos
The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast

The rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast.

Two guys who dedicate the opening track and the title of their record to none other than the thoughts and biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein arouse interest, generate curiosity.
Adding to this is the aura of bizarre intellectual explorers, researchers of a sonic laboratory with an ironic twist, that has surrounded them for some time, and the unique conceptual attitude that in the past has seen them draw from the sounds of an operating room to extract material for their de/re/constructive sonic surgery.
Even those who have never heard an entire record of theirs might be at least curious to peek at the results of their most recent experiment.
So...

The rose, notoriously without teeth, ends its existence swallowed by a beast to return to the life cycle, expelled in another form, becoming itself a necessary substance for the growth of another rose. In the mouth of the beast, it finds its "own" teeth.
The virtuous and paranoid circle that underlies my rough interpretation of the reference to Wittgenstein's logic, I believe, can be applied to the system governing this collection of sound portraits.

Because this is what it is: ten characters, ten tracks assembled using "organic" sounds produced by materials and objects that have direct reference to their stories, to their ideas: roses, indeed. And teeth. And then knives, typewriters, dishes, manure, cigarettes, and scissors. And sperm, whatever its sound may be. Even snails playing a theremin (?).
The perplexity I can imagine painted on your face is the same that was on mine as I inserted the CD into the player.

But the oblique and subtle mechanism of the two Californians worked like a magic trick: what "Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast" delivers through all that ingested organicity is a record full of music.
And of brilliant fragments.
And fun.
And rich in guests, from the Kronos Quartet to Björk (truthfully, a small fragment of her), from Zeena Parkins to Antony, to name the most well-known.
And filled with a great amount of sounds: guitars and basses, strings, pianos. And synthesizers and keyboards. Bombarde, radio waves, and harp. Percussions and trumpets. Even a French horn, just for good measure.

There will be time to savor more closely the details that, in the short circuit of references between structure, biographies, and sounds, form the intricate network of quotations and hints.
It could be an opportunity to trace back from the clues to unknown figures and stories.

But what matters now, listening to "Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast", is that the result of an apparently arduous and forced operation flows, shifting its trajectory in each track, constantly changing tone and atmosphere without ever paying any price in terms of boredom or vacuous "intellectual" extremism.
There truly is a sound world in this toothed rose: unexpected funky flashes, jazzy atmospheres sprinkled with restless classicism (Patricia Highsmith would love the track they tailored for her) whirls and "noises" from cartoon music, deep or crackling rarefactions, "industrial" frenzies. Even what seems to be the soundtrack of a lysergic spy story that seems to end in a cathedral (and the reference here is to Joe Meek, film producer but also musician, involved in the '60s in a murder case) Then the hypnotic obsession of North African percussions and winds, after a ragtime introduction interrupted by a gunshot and continued in the closed of a room at the rhythm of heavy breathing and typewriter keys, in the longest and most complex track, placed almost at the end, in homage to W. Burroughs.
As well as the great pastiche of bucolic classicism and circus expressionism, in the banquet set up in honor of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, with which the two guys bid us farewell.

Two guys who seem to have acquired, over time, the necessary experience to concentrate and reconcile an abstract and conceptual attitude and an excellent craftsmanship applied to the structures of the tracks. Creating with this record, perhaps the tastiest and most attractive fruit produced by their genetics, as artificial as it is "naturally" enjoyable.
But always subtly and ironically unsettling.

Smell the petals, then. But watch out for the teeth.