Mattin - Proletarian of Noise

Hibari
10

Why can’t Mattin play nice like the other kids?

“Proletarian of Noise” is the latest (I think this is number 184 this year) release from our Basque friend, striving its utmost to aggravate, baffle and generally piss off its listeners. It begins beguilingly enough. “Computer Music/Post-Fordism” is a fine little piece, all quiet, sandy ticks arrayed with captivating irregularity. “Ah,” thought I, “not the screech-fest I’d anticipated from the album’s title. How refreshing!” Nuh-uh. “Attitude Fetishist” is in the same general territory as his performance with Tim Barnes at this year’s ErstQuake, that is to say: Mattin screaming, erm, lyrics into his computer mic over a variety of extreme noise. The words are obligingly included in the CD sleeve. This song leads off:

how can you believe everything they tell you?
open your mouth and I’ll spit on you
keep listening and I’ll make you feel like a piece of shit

Forewarned is forearmed and all so I’d simply advise, for the next two tracks, turning your volume level to somewhere between 0 and 1. You’ll thank me. I actually like the pieces in a way, the latter helpfully titled, “Desecration of Silence”, it’s just that my ears don’t.

A bit more than half the disc, the closing 31 minutes, is given over to, “Thesis on Noise”. Whoa, you say, how can he possibly up the ante? Well, he does and doesn’t. The work consists of eleven Mattinesque aphorisms about the nature, social and political, of Noise, spoken by Lisa Rosendahl at intervals between several minutes of total silence. Some of them are provocatively interesting, especially to those of us writing or talking about the area, to wit:

IV To say “this is good noise” or “that is bad noise” is to miss the point.

Or,

VIII The identity process that occurs as people are making Noise must be constantly rejected. To be a “Noisician” is even more pathetic than to be a “musician”

The full deal, as always, is available for naught at Mattin’s site