Those of you who heard our latest Monday Morning Brew playlist (No. 103) via our Substack Newsletter would have heard The Rust Belt, the latest single from Matmos, the duo of Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt. The accompanying video more than lives up to this sonic exploratory delight, taken from their forthcoming new album, Metallic Life Review, out June 20th on Thrill Jockey.
The video is animated by artist Jack Colbert and is a celebration of the myriad eclectic materials used to make Metallic Life Review, animating pocket-sized metallic objects that Colbert sourced from metal detecting. Colbert describes the video: “The objects’ unique eroded surfaces overlap through replacement animation, and the cyclical rhythm of the film mimics the normalization of discarding and replacing belongings.”
Matmos’ Drew Daniel adds:
“This song evolved over a year of editing in which we kept adding and taking away and playing solos on top and chopping and re-mixing. The intro is entirely manipulations of aluminum cans and then it gradually expands to include more and more sounds, including us playing some “drum solos” on all the pots and pans from our own kitchen. The central riff is made out of a steel bar that M.C. Schmidt played with his fist and fingers. The ending sounds are manipulations of a steel railing from an underpass in Switzerland. The kind of foghorn-like tone is made with a steel slide-whistle that we are heavily processing.”
Pre-order Matmos’ Metallic Life Review:
https://thrilljockey.com/products/metallic-life-review
Metallic Life Review features Susan Alcorn’s pedal steel and Owen Gardner’s glockenspiel, Thor Harris’ (Water Damage/Swans) drumming, Jason Willett’s (Half Japanese) guitar, and Jeff Carey’s aluminum cans, which were melted, molded into custom aluminum rods, and then bowed and struck.
Thrill Jockey revealed in the album announcement that the most dramatic difference from any previous Matmos album is that side two was recorded “live in the studio”, a la Throbbing Gristle’s Heathen Earth. For the first time on recording, Matmos capture the evolving, shifting, slithering dynamic that happens when they play live and let patterns emerge out of chaos and then collapse and re-form.
Matmos will be touring throughout 2025 around the UK, Europe and US, including an album release show at Knockdown Center in New York.
Matmos Tour Dates
May 23 – Wiltshire, UK – Acid Horse Festival
May 25 – Glasgow, UK – Baked Beans on the Doorstep
May 28 – Berlin, DE – Silent Green
May 30 – Pordenone, IT – Astro Club
Jun. 1 – Fano, IT – Bagli Elsa
Jun. 2 – Roma, IT – Monk
Jun. 4 – Genova, IT – Giardino di Mentelacole
Jun. 6 – Milano, IT – Museo della scienza
Jun. 7 – Bologna, IT – DumBo
Jun. 12 – Vienna, AT – Flucc
Jun. 14 – London, UK – Rio Cinema
Jun. 21 – New York City, NY – Knockdown Center
Jun. 25 – Philadelphia, PA – Solar Myth
Jun. 29 – Chicago, IL – Constellation
Jul. 3 – Louisville, KY – Art Sanctuary
Jul. 8 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Jul. 11 – Los Angeles, CA – 2220 Arts
Jul. 16 – Portland, OR – Holocene
Aug. 30 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
Nov. 22-28 – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, ES – Espacio Cultural el Tanque / Keroxen Festival