MATMOS
A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure
Record label: Matador
Format: LP/CD
Release date: 13 March 2001

You can only deny the truth for so long: nerds make the coolest music. Want proof? Consider Matmos, a San Francisco duo that has made songs with the sounds of plastic surgery. Somehow, they were able to get the permission of doctors and patients to record during operations. The end results are humorous (in a fun way, not an offensive one) and wildly original. Titles like "California Rhinoplasty" or "Lipostudio...and so on" suggest a certain macabre fascination with nose jobs and vacuuming fat cells, but you'd never get that impression by listening to them. Both are rather upbeat and positive in their presentation, even downright cute. "Spondee" dares to make you shake your rump with medically approved house, bubbling over with personality. Other tracks like "Memento Mori" and "For Felix (and all the rats)" examine the dangers involved with such processes and display darker, cautionary auras. Matmos have made one of the most inventive albums of the year, and I can't wait to hear what they've done for Björk. (See, our high school teachers were right - SCIENCE IS FUN.)

{steve crognale}

MP3 download:
"Lipostudio...and so on"

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