Matmos: A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

San Francisco electronic sound duo Matmos already have a reputation for making electronic music warm and fuzzy enough for guitar-clutching indie-rockers to snuggle up against. With A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, they've taken this transformation a step further, making electronic music that's warm and squishy. The raw sound sources are medical procedures ranging from liposuction to lasik meticulously recorded by the sonic anthropologists that comprise Matmos. But what sounds at first like a gimmick is quickly transformed. Yes, you can pick out the sound of the lasik laser, but only if you're really listening for it. What you do hear, though, are funky compositions that are astounding in their layered, beat-driven simplicity. Old-school electro, syncopated "handclaps," left-field horns (or sounds manipulated to sound horn-y), rooster crows, human voices removed from narrative context -- it all plays into Matmos' re-envisioning of musique concrete that's -- somehow -- equally at home on the dancefloor, sound lab, headphones or operating (turn)table.

(CHRIS HANDYSIDE)