Matmos - California Rhinoplasty EP
(Matador)
This EP is the single for Matmos' excellent A Chance to Cut is a Chance
to Cure LP. In case you haven't heard, the conceit of that record is
that much of the source sounds were recorded during various plastic
surgery procedures. "California Rhinoplasty," the only album track on
this record, is a scattered collage of rhythms, beeps, clicks, whirs, and
other strange noises and a goofy little melody played on something called
a "nose flute." It's somewhat reminiscent of a more laid back Mouse on
Mars, but more grisly. Most of the sounds are not recognizable, but they
throw in some wet stuff just to keep you aware of what's happening.
The stuff that makes this EP interesting, though, as with any single
release, is the other tracks, which here consist of a cover song and
two remixes of "California Rhinoplasty." Now, that may not sound
interesting, but what you may not know is that the cover is of a Coil
song, and the remixes are not regular remixes. Matmos sent Matthew
Herbert and Surgeon (of course!) the raw recordings of the surgeries
but did not provide them with the their song. So you get, in essence,
two totally new takes on the idea. Brilliant!
Though I am a huge Coil fan, the cover of "Disco Hospital," from Coil's
masterpiece the out of print (a curse upon Wax Trax Records!) Love's
Secret Domain is the weakest track. Most of the song sticks too
close to the original, which kind of defeats the purpose of the song.
The original is exciting because it's a cut-up, which provides the song
with its weird and unique cadence. Mimicking that kind of undermines
the whole purpose of doing a cut up. What saves the track is that, like
their album, the source materials are from medical procedures, and it's
fun to pick out which ones are different from the Coil version. Plus it's
a cool song.
The two remixes are, in a way, more disturbing than the Matmos version.
Matthew Herbert's "Doctor Rockit's Surgery With Complications" uses the
source sounds in a more direct way. That is, they sound more like they
were produced during surgical procedures than the sweetened up versions
we get from Matmos. It's an eerie effect, underpinned with an insistent
rhythm track. About half way through, some humming synths take over the
music, and a weird vocal recording of a description of the olfactory
system becomes fairly dominant. It's much stranger than anything Matmos
did with these recordings, which may be better as it forces the listener
to confront the music's origin.
Surgeon's "Second Opinion" remix is by far the strongest track. If you
know Surgeon, you can pretty much guess what this sounds like: minimal,
cold, hard, and unsettling. The sounds have been processed into dark
hums and drones, scrapes and thumps, which ebb and flow ominously. The
concept, which is gruesome in a creep show kind of way in the hands of
Matmos and unsettling in the hands of Matthew Herbert, becomes frightening
and horrific under Surgeon's care. Instead of watching Dr. Frankenstein,
the listener feels like his unwilling subject, strapped to the table,
waiting for the knife.
This EP is great because even if you already have the album, it has a whole
different kind of feel, which is, of course, that of Coil, Matthew
Herbert, and Surgeon. Rather than pump up the record with filler that
didn't make the cut, we get first rate stuff. Plus it clocks in at
nearly 30 minutes, which, taken altogether, makes this one worth it.
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