Matmos - The Marriage Of True Minds

Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt have been crafting often brilliant, occasionally frustrating nouveau musique concrete since the late 1990s. Albums have emerged entirely created from the surgery table (‘A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure’) or from the lives of various queer icons (‘The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast’). ‘The Marriage Of True Minds’ moves beyond that realm and into the murky world of the mental, or, more specifically, the psychic. The duo lead a series of accomplices through a range of psychic experiments and subsequently attempted to transmit the concept of the new album into the patient’s mind, using the patients responses as the foundation for the new album.

The difficulty with such a conceptual approach is that the concept often threatens to overwhelm the execution. But strip away the weighty basis for the album, and you’ve still got a stellar, often lush, even catchy or mantra-like collection of adult electronica. ‘Very Large Green Triangles’ gallops along with a skittering synth bass, stabs of heavenly voices and glittering bells. ‘Ross Transcript’ harks back to ‘The Rose Has Teeth…’ era with its collage of garbled voices and gently menacing drone.

In fact, this is Matmos’ most listenable album. The song structures are comparatively comprehensible, and ultimately, the whole process would be somewhat superfluous if the duo weren’t capable of creating something worthwhile to sonically experience. Thankfully, this union is something which Daniel and Schmidt can be very proud of.