More Cooing over Matmos

I can imagine thinking, let's create an album of musical portraits of people we admire.

I can imagine thinking, let's make an homage to novelist Patricia Highsmith.

I can imagine thinking, let's incorporate Patricia Highsmith's fascination with snails somehow into our musical homage.

I can imagine thinking, let's see if we can close-mike some snails and get some sounds from them.

I can even imagine thinking, hmmm, these snails sure are quiet, so let's see if we can get the snails to trigger some sounds somehow.

The leap I can't imagine is, let's put the snails in a glass tube and shine beams of light through the tube using penlights and lasers that are connected to a light-sensitive theremin, then record the snails as they crawl up the sides and play the theremin with their antennae, then create a musical work out of that.

That's just genius.

The whole brilliant and hilarious video is worth watching, but if you're short on time this particular segment is about halfway through.

Comments

[Nick]

I was on the phone with Martin a couple years ago, and he said that their piano dragrace had been a failure but that they were working on an album that would profile "illustrious homosexuals." "Like Liberace?" I asked. "No, hahaha. Like William S. Burroughs." I think he thought I was joking.

[M. C-]

I can't believe he didn't take you up on that! Matmos vs Liberacethat would be extraordinary.