Matmos - Supreme Balloon (Matador)
3/5
By: Andrew Misuraca
Where music is generally considered art its various genres and subgenres always bring the matter to question. If art is what you make of it then it works both ways; if I consider something art and you don't, where does that leave it? Likewise, if a composer considers his work art and I don't, where does that leave me? Stick to the maxim: art is what you make it. So what exactly do Matmos make?
Aptly hailed by Kid 606 as "the A-team of electronica", Matmos take a slight detour by not going all Hannibal on our collective arse and sticking to synthesizers. They've pushed the "found art" (which I always question: taking a toilet bowl and labelling it a fountain... really?) aspect aside and stuck to mostly vintage synths from the 60s through 80s. That means no mics, no sounds of semen on paper, no bible pages, no crayfish nerve tissue no whoopee cushions and no Polish trains. What we are left with is essentially seven and-a-bit tracks of Matmos stuck in a Sega Megadrive and thrust into space.
For the most part it sounds like glitchy game music (and as far as I'm concerned, Sonic's 'Green Hill Zone' is one of the finest works of art ever created) taking some sort of human form. It's a mass of electronics twitching and spluttering, choking, alive and evolving. 'Exciter Lamp and the Variable Band' sounds like ancient consoles playing ballsports with omnichord accompaniment. 'Cloudhoppers' is what post rock would sound like if created by Wonder Boy. 'Mister Mouth' does sound like they've gone crazy with an arpeggiator and not given it much more thought until the N.E.R.D. style synth break, which rocks fairly hard. Epic 'Supreme Balloon' swells and builds like a cyborg Thomas Newman composition, but at a mammoth 24 minutes it can grate if you don't have the patience.
The only real questionable moment comes in the form of 'Les Folies Françaises'. I'm not quite sure the world needs electro baroque music (I certainly don't) and the only thing I can see it offering is some nice synth sounds. I mean, it's all well and good but they may as well have pressed the demo button on a crappy old Yamaha and put it through a synth patch, it's bona fide filler.
All in all, Supreme Balloon is probably one of Matmos' poppier records to date. Some top moments, some questionable, but deserving of a good listen if you've got the time.
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