MATMOS
The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Matador
· Queer History 101.
Matmos has always had big ideas. Incorporating audio samples from liposuction operations, their 2001 album A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure made for a mildly upsetting entry in the annals of left-field electronica, and since then each of Matmos’s subsequent works has sprung forth from a similarly experimental seed.
For The Rose has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, longtime couple Drew Daniel and Martin C. Schmidt turn the focus slightly inward by taking on the cultural history of homosexuality. Accompanied by thorough notes of precisely what "instruments" each track features, Matmos run the risk of overshadowing the actual music with the absurdity of its creation. "Tract for Valerie Solanas" (featuring "Rape Alarms" and "Cow Uterus, Reproductive Tract, and Vagina" played, as it were, with a vacuum cleaner) pales in reality to its concept on paper, while Antony Hegarty’s ghostly vocals almost seem to get in the way for those straining to hear just how the likes of "Toilet Paper Roll Panflute, Paper, and Semen" come into play on "Semen Song for James Bidgood."
While it’s fascinating to imagine just how all the pieces of Mouth of a Beast fit together, Matmos shoot themselves in the foot in a case of style over substance with very little staying power (all puns intended – "Semen Song" for one, lasts all of five minutes, and how much fun is that?).
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