Margarida Garcia/Mattin
For Permitted Consumption
L’Innomable
04
Radu Malfatti/Mattin
Whitenoise
w.m.o/r
07
Taku Sugimoto/Yasuo Totsuka/Mattin
Training Thoughts
w.m.o/r
09
Belaska
Vault
w.m.o/r
06
Mattin’s been releasing recordings at a rate of about two per hour recently and four of them recently alit on my player. Oddly enough, they’re all pretty good. Even excellent.
Half of them feature our intrepid computer feedbackicist in severely quiet mode. One that doesn’t may be my slight favorite, a rollicking duo with bassist Margarida Garcia who herself released several very fine discs last year. “For Permitted Consumption” is a single, relatively brief (33 minutes) piece that’s broken into several fragments, indeed sometimes sounding as though the recording tape was altered with garden shears. Garcia’s electric bass is attacked with abandon, flayed with bow and hammered with fist, creating a wide range of mysterious rumbles, hisses, groans and more. Mattin, as seems to be his habit, is rather more elusive; it’s often difficult to precisely pin down his contributions. But the piece has a rich cinematic quality, a black and white graininess that evokes a slow pan of a dark, industrial interior. While I’m not exactly certain what’s involved with “computer feedback”, there are definitely moments where feedback reigns, underpinned by some marvelously dirty bass scrapings. A nice, tough little album.
Unsurprisingly, Mattin’s duo with Radu Malfatti, “Whitenoise”, inhabits very different territory. Our own Dan Warburton appears to come at this disc, in his fine WIRE review, from a different angle than myself. Whereas he concentrates on the spaces and intricacies of the piece itself, I find that I tend to enjoy letting the first piece mingle with surrounding sounds (obviously, I don’t think either approach is “right”). The held tones here, for example, breaths from Malfatti and washes which more or less match in timbre and texture from Mattin, are an almost exact sonic map for the soft purr, in both duration and general sound quality, of cars passing outside in the street. Admittedly, this manner of listening is confounded later on in the first piece when a thin, piercing line of feedback dominates. Having failed to encounter a corresponding ambulance siren, I’m jerked back into the recording itself, which back and forth is, actually, rather invigorating. This “interruption” is brief, however and we’re soon back into the realm of car engine-accommodating hisses. The second track has more overt continuity, lacking the longish silent stretches of the first. As Dan pointed out, there’s something of a more “natural” quality in the sounds produced—wind and grass rustles as opposed to automotive susurrus. Malfatti can be heard gulping for air between attacks, lending a nervous urgency to the affair that demands attention. No street-listening here! Mattin supplies a subtle, undulating backdrop containing, upon closer listen, a large number of varying elements including some juicy dollops of low feedback that are squeezed out at irregular intervals. Not really minimal at all, this portion of the disc is one of the richer, denser works I’ve heard in a while.
“Training Thoughts” refer to those of the chugging kind. This was recorded “live at Emban” and while I’ve been unable to determine exactly what Emban is, I assume it’s within close proximity of a railway. The very first sound one hears (and, essentially, the only sound for a few minutes) is that of a passing train, not very near, maybe separated by a wall, a soft, liquid rumble of muffled clacks that glide smoothly along—really a quite attractive sound. It reappears often at irregular intervals and, indeed, I’m not entirely positive if it’s an artifact of the ambience or a summoned sample but I’m betting on the former. It’s only at about the 7-minute mark (out of 65) that one hears something other than a train as tiny tinkles and thin hums gradually emerge at no greater level of prominence than what preceded. At about 22 minutes, Sugimoto plucks a single note. Mattin and Totsuka (on mixing board, one guesses) emit quiet but atmospheric whispers and whooshes, occasionally buttressed by Sugimoto, more often heard alongside the ghostly train. About halfway through, the trio briefly becomes predominant and, for the remainder of the disc, remains of roughly equal footing with its engine-drive accompanist. Personally, I like the result a lot. There’s a spatial depth that’s very sensual and the trio manages the utmost reticence without appearing either tense or coy. Most recordings with this much silence carry something of an anxious feel, but “Training Thoughts” is relaxed and accepting.
Belaska is Mattin teaming with Mark Wastell, heard here as on the fine +Minus disc, performing on “amplified textures” instead of cello. A fairly unique soundscape is achieved almost immediately as thick, echoing heavy-door-closing sounds play off against embedded slivers of severe electronica, the dark, subterranean atmosphere befitting the disc’s title, “Vault”. Indeed, per Mattin’s notes, the inspiration appears to have been the juxtaposition of an electrical alarm box with its hyper-solid, cool surrounding walls. Not nearly as quiet as the preceding two recordings, “Vault”'s throbbing pulsations occasionally reach medium volume levels though the subsonics can penetrate into one’s spinal region. The four sections occupy this low seismic area, laced with sizzling veins, throughout the disc, not varying too much yet remaining both convincing and intriguing, ringing true enough to sustain interest and then some. As with the Garcia release (and with several of Mattin’s works) there’s a decidedly movie-like feel induced here, something that could easily be a soundtrack for a dark film that blends concrete imagery with an abstract narrative. Again, very good stuff.
He may be issuing recordings at a prodigious rate, but if Mattin can keep churning them out at this high level of quality, bring ‘em on.
~ Brian Olewnick
Posted by on June 11, 2004 5:59 PMNicely done, Brian. I want them all.
By the way, a new Mattin release was announced just today, newly issued in Antiopic's 3" live series:
SAKADA
featuring Mattin, Eddie Prévost, Mark Wastell, Margarida Garcia, Rhodri Davies
Never Give Up On The Margins Of Logic
AN006/LS002
recorded 3 May 2003 at Conway Hall, London, UK
For London's Freedom of the City Festival, Mattin's Sakada materializes in a big band incarnation. Unexpectedly, the larger the group, the smaller the sound. In contrast to Sakada's dense previous recordings as the trio of Mattin, Prévost and Rosy Parlane, here the expanded Sakada navigate a more restrained and open territory. Droning passages rise and ebb in blocks, the sound folding over on itself, while minute textures dance on the edges. The emphasis on bowed sounds (Prévost's cymbals, Davies' harp, Garcia's bass, Wastell's objects and Mattin's computer casing (!!!)) brings to mind the slow churning of a Morton Feldman composition, yet mutated further into the realm of the unexpected and abstract. This recording finds a group as attuned to the space in between as they are to each other. An intense document of precisely restrained improvisation.
"The careful selection and placement of sounds in the music are what matter most. Sonic events occur simultaneously, or overlap, and in the process the music thickens and thins and accumulates complexity."
- Brian Marley, The Wire #232
Very nice job indeed. For Permitted Consumption is definitely my favorite of that batch, an amazing disc and Mattin's best work yet, with Vault close behind. I guess it betrays my own biases that the two more silence-oriented discs don't do as much for me. I enjoy the second track of Whitenoise, though I think Training Thoughts is really much more successful at achieving whatever ineffable quality is present in this kind of quiet improv.
I'm really looking forward to that Sakada 3" as well. It seems like Mattin's sudden prolificacy is doing him a world of good, he sounds different on every album. With each new disc he appears on, it seems like he's stretching himself further and further, and still no sign of breaking. A few more collaborations like this, and I'll be dying to hear what he can do next time he tries his hand at a solo disc again.
Posted by: Ed Howard at June 16, 2004 4:55 PMI haven't been able to connect with Training Thoughts at all, it's simply too sparse for me. my fave of these four is the Malfatti collaboration, largely because it's so impressive to me that Mattin got Radu to actually poke his head out of his musical foxhole. the one with Margarida is great also, I haven't especially connected with Vault yet (or with the much-revered +minus).
in other 2004 Mattin news: there's a very nice release on Grob, with Malfatti, Dean Roberts and Klaus Filip. there's a CD-R with Tim Barnes of their show here, on Quakebasket, worth picking up. he's also working on a Absurd release with Dion Workman, and I thought there was a collaboration underway with Taku Unami, maybe for Hibari? poor underdocumented soul. :)
I was at the concert on the Antiopic disc, second row center. I'm guessing this will be a case where the CD will be better than the concert was, as the small details of the music were lost in that acoustic space, going straight up and never making it into the audience. curious to hear it...
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 16, 2004 5:19 PMBeat me to it again Brian! My own piece on Training Thoughts & FPC - and the new Grob quartet with Malfatti, Filip & Roberts - is due on July 1 (though I did do sth on Vault a while back and, yes, Whitenoise for Wire).
I asked Mattin about those train noises on TT, and he's refusing to give any information! Are they from outside the venue or samples? What do you guys think? Real or Memorex? And where is Emban?
What's nice about this is that we all disagree about our favourite albums (!) - Ed prefers FPC, Jon likes the new Grob (I'm not blown away - yet), and I still go for Whitenoise. That means they're ALL good!!
I'd pick Whitenoise also, if limited to just one.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 16, 2004 10:33 PMI'd like to know if Mattin's done any other wiggy collage-style pieces like "St. Petersburg 1," the track he released via the Antiopic website. While I find his more "pure" efforts plenty stimulating, there's something about that track that keeps me coming back repeatedly.
There's actually quite a lot of free Mattin to be found online. I've downloaded some two-and-a-half hours' worth, including a beautiful hourlong set with Klaus Filip and an equally lovely 44-minute quartet with Oliver Stotz, dieb13 and Billy Roisz (both at jokebux.klingt.org), as well as a 22-minute chunk of the duo with Unami (from www.mattin.org).
I haven't actually heard that many of the CD releases, but I quite like the ear-scalding Goro.
Posted by: Steve at June 17, 2004 12:19 AM"I'd pick Whitenoise also, if limited to just one." - me, too. although they're all pretty cool, really.
"I asked Mattin about those train noises on TT, and he's refusing to give any information! Are they from outside the venue or samples?"
good question...
and who is this yasuo totsuka? any other recommended records by this guy?
Posted by: tomas at June 17, 2004 5:55 AMApparently the answer's in the Japanese text on the back cover of the CD - so who do we know with Japanese friends who could translate it for us? Can you help out Jon? Steve, are all the downloads you mention on Mattin's site?
Posted by: dan warburton at June 17, 2004 9:34 PMDan, the two longer performances I cited are hosted at jokebux.klingt.org, where you'll also find copious free downloadables from the likes of dieb13, Efzeg, Boris Hauf and so on... just today, I stumbled onto a small but nice cache of Otomo collaborations. Well worth exploring.
The duo with Taku Unami is on Mattin's site (which also includes direct links to his files at klingt.org). He's got MP3s by other artists there, too; today I downloaded an Anthony Guerra file and was rather surprised to find myself listening to hardcore punk tunes...
The "St. Petersburg 1" piece I mentioned is part of the "Allegorical Power Series" found at www.antiopic.com -- if you haven't trawled through the seven monthly "issues" of MP3s there, all I can say is you're in for many treats, including a massive chunk of Unstable Ensemble and countless other worthy entries.
The biggest drag for me is that I've downloaded all of these files at work, where I have a fast connection but can't burn CDs; at home I can burn, but I'm on creaky dial-up. And since I'm leaning toward never getting an iPod, that's probably the way it's going to stay for the foreseeable future. (I love the set by Mattin, Stotz, dieb13 and Billy Roisz, for instance, but I just don't think I've got 20 hours available in which to download that 44-minute file to my machine at home!)
Posted by: Steve at June 17, 2004 10:10 PMthe possible release with Dion Worman would be on Antifrost (www.antifrost.gr) not on Absurd.
another collaboration is coming out in 3 weeks. is with Junko (from Hijokaidan) and this is not sparse music.
Looking forward to see what you think of it.
thanks for positive comments.
hi, mattin! sorry I got my greek labels confused...
listened to "tinnitus" yesterday, very cool!
Posted by: Jon Abbey at July 3, 2004 2:23 PMHello to Mattin and all the rest!
I am quite happy about the fact that Mattin is getting the recognition that he deserves (in that sense i would like to see a piece on him in ''holy bible'' of musical adventures - Wire). There along w reviews Mattin got just a big misunderstanding from Eddie Prevost about his method of creating sound. Anyway since we (as L'innomable) released his work with Margarida Garcia i just like to report that there are some additional info bout release and other stuff ready on www.linnomable.com
(the site hasn't been working for some time and now is back in order)
all best
Posted by: lukaz at July 4, 2004 4:52 AMThe Wire is the Bible? Holy shit.. we're back to that "Radu is Pope" and "Keith is Jesus" bit, are we?!
Well, excuse me, I got a quick gospel to write :))
St Dan
Mattin + Junko?!!!!! Can't wait!!!!!
Man, not one but *two* Bagatellen regulars on a record together (Tomas and Dan)? Nice.
Posted by: Nirav at July 4, 2004 10:41 AMi guess bagatellen should start its own label. or even better: a BIG BAND. imagine that... ;)
Posted by: tomas at July 4, 2004 3:24 PMI got dibs on conducting.
Posted by: al at July 4, 2004 3:29 PMThis is a bit of a late answer to the train noises question, but having been to a gig at Emban on a recent Tokyo jaunt (a solo set by Sachiko M) I can report that the venue's very near the railway line.
Posted by: matt at January 8, 2006 4:18 AMHi Matt
Is Emban near enough to the railway line for a microphone feed to be run into the venue for a live performance? I'm still wondering how the recording was made It's one I particularly like, among Mattin's best IMO, along with White Noise and Vault.
Posted by: Brian Marley at January 8, 2006 4:43 AMThe venue's a small record shop on the second floor so it's almost level with the railway line - no need for a microphone feed. Train noise is part of any gig at Emban by default, though it's less noticeable with noisier sets. It certainly added to the intensity of the Sachiko M gig I heard - periodic brief rumblings which worked as mesmerising interjections into a more or less static set. The Tokyo metro service's contributions made the whole thing sound quite ritualistic.
Posted by: matt at January 8, 2006 5:44 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................