You’re COOL, aren’t you? I mean, you must be. You dig “conceptual art and electronic music.” Especially if that music is made by a DUO, which all good electronic music is. Most people don’t even know what “conceptual art and electronic music” IS, outside of that one song by Radiohead that they always mistakenly call “Ice Age Coming” (which kind of brings you satisfaction).
When they ask you what that stuff is all about, you’re usually all too happy to smugly supply the example of longtime “conceptual art and electronic music duo” Matmos, whose forthcoming album, Ultimate Care II, comes out February 19 on Thrill Jockey and was composed exclusively using the “sounds generated by a Whirlpool Ultimate Care II model washing machine in the basement of their home in Baltimore, Maryland.”
Well, guess what? Now I have even better news for you, you smug, cool person, you. See, from now on, you’ll be able to hyperlink those poor Philistines directly to a hot new music video from that Matmos album! This way, if they don’t believe you about Ultimate Care II’s backstory, they’ll be ably convinced when they both hear AND SEE washing machines shaking their fiberglass groove-thangs around.
The video was directed by Max Eilbacher (of Horse Lords) and features, like I said, “an animated model of a washing machine separated from its intended domestic position.” Watch “Excerpt Three” below and pre-order the album. But don’t do both at once, or you’re liable to fuck both of them up. And that’s not Matmos-fan cool.
Oh, and in case the video alone doesn’t convince them that “conceptual art and electronic music” is legit shit, there’s also a small handful of tour dates (with more to be announced shortly), at which Matmos’ press-handlers assures me “there will be a Whirlpool Ultimate Care II washing machine on stage” for each. Doesn’t get any cooler than that, now does it?
Matmos dates:
02.20.16 - Baltimore, MD - Floristree [record release show]
03.15.16 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall [in the round]
03.19.16 - Brooklyn, NY - National Sawdust
04.13.16 - Philadelphia, PA - International House