Matmos
Supreme Balloon
(Matador, 2008)

San Francisco duo Matmos never come to us with a new album that doesn’t have a trick up its sleeve. They love to impose concepts on themselves, as with The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (2006), which was a symphony illustrating the history of important gay figures that was captivating but wild, and The Civil War (2003), which sometimes meandered past its own concept while attempting to wage musical battles against itself in North vs. South style. And the twosome’s newest, Supreme Balloon, is no exception. For the seven-song psychedelic head trip, Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt shelved instruments big, small, found, and bought, with the sole exception of synthesizers.

From start to finish, there is not even so much as a microphone in sight on Supreme Balloon. Matmos stuck to their rule strictly. But they prove, once again, how freeing restrictions can be.

Although they eschewed their usually wide collection of music-making objects to stick with plug-toting electronics, Matmos makes up in quantity of synthesizers for what they lack in variety of instruments. They managed to track down an entire cornucopia of synthesizers that vary so much as to add a huge amount of contrast, fluctuation, and sensation to the music.

Balloon is a gearhead’s wet dream, and a conceptual monster. The recordings include three decades worth of Arps, Korgs, Rolands, Waldorfs, and Moogs with a list of modulars that boasts Electro-Comp, Akai, and Doepfer systems. And they even found a way around their No Human Voices rule by bringing in Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra on Electronic Voice Instrument, a breath-controlled oscillator, for the aptly titled track “Mister Mouth.”

Over the course of the seven songs, the pair maximizes the possibilities of their self-imposed gauntlet, achieving an amazing array of feelings from tracks that are all made of essentially the same simple elements. From “Polychords”, which hops and bumps like a dance party filled with bullfrogs, to breathy album-ender “Cloudhopper”, which turns the same eerie bleeps and chirps into a dwindling melancholic serenade.

Ballon’s title track is definitely the album’s defining piece. An absolute marathon of a song, it clocks in at 24 minutes and evolves heroically from a drone, to a tentative warble, then into the anticipatory takeoff of an orchestra of bleeps and chords, through trills and squeals, finally sputtering and slowing into a quiet, distorted finish. It’s a long but elated ride.

As far as truly accomplishing a complete thought, Supreme Balloon is Matmos’ most effective album yet. Maybe it is because the simple idea frees them from their sometimes overarching ambition, or maybe it’s because they are just beginning to perfect songwriting on a long leash. Whatever the reason, the seven tracks come together perfectly.

And because Matmos never disappoint when recreating their music in person—they have been known to spend extra money shipping strange items like rat cages to their own performances—Supreme Balloon leaves us looking forward to finding out how they plan to lug around all those synths.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

More articles by Lavinia Jones Wright:

Album review of Portishead, Third

Introducing: Christopher Denny: Southern-Fried Gothic

Bad Veins: Please Hold the Line