Mattin - Broken Subject

Free Software Series

Since I first heard his music almost a decade ago now the Basque laptop improviser Mattin has intrigued, excited, annoyed, confused, irritated, delighted, inspired, stunned, challenged and bored me in roughly equal amounts. One thing I can say for sure about the man and his music however is that he always grabs my attention.

The Free Software Series label has been set up by Mattin to promote the free distribution of music creation freeware and to showcase music created with it. Broken Subject is the fourth in the series, and the only one of the four releases so far to feature Mattin. If his music over the past few years may have seemed to focus as much on the conceptual as the inherently musical, Broken Subject feels like a move back in the other direction, however temporary. The ten tracks on this CDR bristle with a muscular vitality and directness that feels like the work of a musician engaging tightly, almost physically with the music, like a potter behind his wheel wrestling with his creation.

Whilst retaining this sense of energy throughout, the assorted tracks here range from the relatively loud and violent through to the barely audible, utilising quite a range of dynamics, from the forceful blasts that open the album to the fine slithers elsewhere. Each of the tracks seems to focus on a small set of sounds, always digital in nature, but somehow sounding different to the usual squawks and drones of the solo laptopper. Perhaps the absence of Max/MSP filters makes all the difference, but those throttled, glitchy sounds that sounded so fresh in the early days of Mego Records but now feel so dated are not present here.

If anything the sounds Mattin produces on Broken Subject seem closer to the stark rigour of the new Korean improvisers documented of late by the Manual and Balloon and Needle labels and with whom Mattin has played and recorded. The album has a feel of malfunctioning technology to it, the sound of modern digital media tripping over itself, a wild uncertainty as if to a degree the sounds shaped by Mattin are pulled from the software by chance.

The one element of the album that hints at some level of predetermination is the length of the tracks, as all of them last exactly three minutes. Its not clear if Broken Subject is composed to any degree, whether the exact time limits are the result of editing after the fact or if limitations were set on the recording of the pieces. The way that the tracks each focus one area of sound for their brief duration works very nicely though, allowing the distinct dynamics of each of the separate pieces to offset one another. This provides the album with an overall sense of symmetrical construction that would suggest that the track order was carefully chosen if nothing else.

So no pithy conversations with the listener, no dreadful singing, nothing that is likely to offend, but instead Broken Subject is a challenging, abrasive album that seems to capture raw energy and place it into a precise framework. An intriguing and somewhat original work that goes some way further than merely promoting the potential of music freeware.

Available to buy as a CDR or download free from

Free Software Series/