Matmos — Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer

Sonic poststructuralists Matmos (M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel) have returned with Regards/ Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer, an album featuring reworked material culled from the archive of late Polish composer and experimentalist, Bogusław Schaeffer (to whom the release is dedicated).

Invited for a residency in the erstwhile Schaeffer’s home country, Matmos created a sample pack of sources to then treat with their characteristic meticulousness, heard on nearly every track as an audible click or cut. Self-referential or fully transparent, either way the effect is a staccato greater than the sum of its parts. There are typewriters, ocean sounds, chorales, harps, and all manner of flutter in between. 

The first five tracks create a frenetic landscape, vexed and hurried, which at moments become dance-y, almost pop jingles, while the last three pieces take us on more expansive, spatial cruises. What is most impressive is the overall presentation of Schaeffer’s work is the manner in which Matmos manages to present it, as if completely conscious of the strong likelihood that most of us have never actually heard the original recordings. Instead of recognizing audible allusion and reference, Matmos give us a house as if we came upon it without having any knowledge of what a house is. 

Regards /Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer is a work of auditory materialism, which allows the original to show through not as something known, but as purse sensuous aurality. That is the greatest tribute one can give. Extremely rich, funny, and full of slap-back edits to amuse even the most serious cut-up