Matmos lecture today // sciarc 7pm

http://www.myspace.com/matmos1

http://www.junkmedia.org/index.php?i=883

There’s a great mocking Morton Feldman quote about musical structure: “Structure? Structure? What are you building, a house?” The truth is that I think we kind of are building little model houses. I think of our songs as akin to a walk through someone’s house: first the entrance, then the first room, then another, and then another, and then another, and as you go, you pick up more clues to what the person is like, and sometimes you can’t square the riding boots in the hallway with the ballgowns in the closet. Our songs are kind of inconsistent, and they don’t usually repeat sections — we don’t use verse/chorus structure, which is why we’ve made so many things for Bjork that really don’t work. We don’t naturally think in terms of that kind of return again and again to an assertive, strong chorus “moment”. Martin says it’s more like free association and I think he’s right.

Spend a lot of time with a minimum of equipment and a maximum of enjoyment in the process of fiddling and experimenting and you will have fun. Don’t worry about buying the latest or most expensive anything, and don’t worry if at first you’re just imitating other people’s records that you like, that’s how almost everybody gets started. Gradually you will stumble onto things that you can call your own, that you find out for yourself. Don’t hang all your hopes on other people (labels, shows, scenes)- nobody is ever going to care about what you do as much as you do, and that’s just fine. Be ruthless about your own work- throw lots of it away, start over. Recycle things

Don Keye  Matmos interview