It is hands down one of the weirdest gigs I’ve ever been to. MC Schmidt and Drew Daniel stood around a desk full of sound equipment beneath an enormous screen while their guest, Andrew Tuttle, sat facing the crowd wearing blacked-out glasses and counting down from 15.
While Matmos filled the half-empty hall with sounds, Tuttle spoke non sequiturs about triangles which would appear on the screen a few moments later in what I thought must be the practical jokes and “experiments in telepathy” referred to in the program. I was confused.
Thinking “this is weird and he can’t sing”, I wondered how long it would go for. Tuttle left at the end of the 15-minute piece, and the noises became slightly more musical for Very Large Green Triangles as Schmidt chanted like a Gregorian monk and tinkled bells into a microphone along with Daniel’s sampling and occasional vocals.
Just as I was thinking that the Sydney festival is way too established for something this odd, and that I needed to be standing in a dark warehouse somewhere with a very stiff drink, Schmidt said hello to the crowd. “This is very fancy for us, and we appreciate it,” he said. “Normally we’re in a dive bar and everyone’s talking and shitting on stage.” Note to self then: it could be weirder.
Continuing in theme with the dive bar gigs, Matmos visualised their next piece with an exploratory journey through the drainpipe of a New York toilet. I have to be honest and say I didn’t notice the music on this one as I was concentrating quite hard on not gagging. Others were far more engaged with it: the piece ended to rapturous applause from the small crowd before the visuals were replaced by Dark Side of the Moon/Daft Punk/Metropolis-style geometric animations.
The highlight performance – and I did enjoy this show, despite being slightly traumatised – was the second “premiere” piece. (The first was the toilet exploration.) The centrepiece of the arrangement was a live streamed metronome looming ominously over the stage on screen.
Schmidt and Daniel slowly built a sonic wall of sounds and beats around the heavy tick-tick-ticking, reaching a crescendo of actually gorgeous electronica. It was infectious, consuming, disjointed and destructive. It was in moments like this that the talent of the Matmos duo outdid their twisted imaginations.
The encore included a man’s naked torso accompanied by some enthusiastic balloon manipulation, mirrored on stage by Schmidt (albeit fully clothed) with his own red balloon. It was funny and a little juvenile, and again with talent hidden beneath the bizarre.
Matmos is a very odd experience, but fascinating. I have been much more bored at many more concerts – but never quite so weirded out, and that is far better than seeing something forgettable.
Matmos are also playing dates in Hobart on 18 Jan and Melbourne on 19 Jan
