3 October 2003
Let’s open on a cheerful note, shall we? For fuck’s sake, it may not be a good title (and the cover’s rubbish), but you could at least get it right: it’s Comatorium, not Crematoirum. Comatorium, Comatorium, Comatorium, Comatorium, Comatorium. Maybe your spellchecker automatically replaced it; but then, if you need to spell-check a 40-word post you deserve it.
Sometimes I wonder about music reviewers. The AMG guy who reviewed Matmos’s The Civil War obviously understood that the title was a reference to days of yore ( ‘two of the album’s reference points are the English Civil War of the 16th century and the American Civil War’ ), but still felt the need to open his — or her — review by calling the title ‘subtly oxymoronic’ . Thanks for that, genius.
The album itself is maddening. I really should hate it, because, well, look at some of the instruments used:
Samples like this — or even ‘live’ playing of the instruments — can be great, undoubtedly. But it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of making them more important than the music itself, so that it’s no longer a case of listening to an album but trying to figure out where that sample came from, or what sound that distorted shriek original was. Matmos avoid that, and avoid it well. Yes, there are jarring moments, and some of the tracks are nothing but a succession of these, but individual sounds aren’t what makes it what it is.
Let’s get down to brass tracks (did you see what I did there?). Regicide and The Struggle Against Unreality Begins are, quite simply, brilliant, mixing traditional instruments with electronic screeches, squeals, and blasts of sound. The rest of the album follows that pattern to varying degrees: listening to their cover of The Stars and Stripes Forever is like watching a firework show put on by pyromaniac teenagers, while both versions of For The Trees are lush, gentle listening. A special mention also goes to Zealous Order of Candied Knights, or ZOCK, which is exactly what it says on the tin.
A special mention should also go to the album art. There’s a review of F-Zero GX I saw (I forget where), in which the reviewer gave it 5/5 for gameplay, graphics, and sound, but only 3.5 for box art, knocking it down to 4.5 overall. That’s not going to happen here, though. It’s a cardboard case, which is always nice — I seem to have a higher percentage of these from Matador than other labels — and inside there are photos of the participants in medieval garb. As well as a large number of people, there’s also a rabbit and a skeleton.
Like I said, it’s maddening. Because you might think now that it’s a great album, a masterpiece. It’s not; there are moments that are frankly dull. And these moments sometimes aren’t actually moments at all, but almost whole tracks. It’s easy to forget after listening to Aphex Twin and Squarepusher that unconventional ‘straight’ electronica doesn’t come naturally to everybody. Matmos have enlisted a raft of guest stars on this album, including some very strange people, but it seems they’ve been just a shade more concerned with putting everything together than they have with