a r t o . a r t i a n

musika txikien katalogoa / catálogo de musicas mínimas

1. .

   Una broma navajera
   Alberto Cabrera (3 de septiembre 2008)
2. .

   Foxi Digitalis

   ‘Til this point I’ve frankly not had lot of luck finding much that Basque avant–garde–trickster slash prankster– “muso” slash performance–artist Mattin has had a hand in to be a particularly pleasant and/or rewarding listening experience. To recap, that would include his “exquisitely restrained” laptop improvisations with Radu Malfatti, Eddie Prévost, and Alex Dörner; his “palate–cleansing” duet with Tim Barnes at Erstquake 3; or the “deformed, impossibly strange ‘rock & roll” he makes in Billy Bao and Josetxo Grieta. Not that I’ve heard all of it, to be sure. But onward.

   The Mattin Songbooks – of which this is the fourth instalment – defy glib explanation, and “Songbook Vol. 4” is easily my pick of and the most successful in the series. Uh… wait… define success. Ok. Rather than being an excruciatingly long solo set of Mattin abusing a guitar and unsuccessfully mimicking/parodying Lou Reed, “Vol. 4” was recorded in a live setting in Tokyo (Enban, 5th July 2006) and features a full(–ish) band: Anthony Guerra (second guitar), Taku Unami (bass and piano) – and from the toilet, Tomoya Izumi (shouting) and Jean-Luc Guionnet (saxophone). It’s also quite tolerably concise – 22 minutes – and most importantly, if you’re me you’ll not only enjoy listening to this but you’ll come back again and again for more.

   Mattin helpfully offers the following manifesto as a guide to one’s appreciation of his “Songbooks”:

   1. Make up songs on the spot
   2. The songs must have a beginning, a chorus, and an end
   3. Record the songs directly into the internal microphone of a laptop computer
   4. Use improvisation as a way or exposing structural and improvisational clichés in pop/rock music
   5. Use song structures to demystify the so-called spontaneity and freedom of improvisation
   6. Release the recordings on different labels and laugh at different peoples reactions

   … and to that you may as well add the following, gleaned from the declamatory liner notes:

   7. Mastering, “clean(s)ing”, post-production of any sort is to be forgone

   So right away you’re probably thinking, “Oh yeah, like those Company Week albums, or Lars Von Trier’s film–making Dogma”. And if you’re thinking that then you’re probably also recalling the somewhat marked variances in listen–slash–watchability. And possibly also how they are always breaking their own rules. Or possibly not. But either way don’t stop reading now, cos I haven’t yet had the chance to tell you that this is one of the most exciting “out–”rock records I’ve heard for some time – somehow the five players conjure up something incredible and vital that resembles – but at the same time surpasses – an ideal collision of a drummerless Fushitsusha and the most abstract outré extremities of Reynols – all ending up at a loft-gig in NYC 1977 on the same bill as DNA and the Theoretical Girls.

   This one is the goods. Now the songs – for we must grant them that respect – despite their spontaneous conceptions there’re beginnings, choruses and endings (2) – arc with the true curve of accomplished compositions. This time the electric guitars chime and ring and shine with the sheen of suppressed feedback fury, while Mattin’s vocals veer between unaffected falsetto and bellows of tormented angst. Taku Unami’s implausibly funky bass pops ands lopes all over the constructs that the band has conjured – then he puts down the bass and weaves delicate piano lines all through “You Cannot Survive Any Of My Desires”. It’s no mean feat but Mattin and his pick-up band actually *cough* break my heart on the set–closer “Apologies”; when he pleads “I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.. it is not my intention to offend you” in his quivering murmur, my ears forgive him for all those irritations.

   At some point someone will need to point out to Mattin that several of the articles of his dogma are flawed: (4) and (5) specifically – whatever; it’s old news; for god’s sake has the man not heard of progressive rock and jazz fusion? – and article (6) is frankly asinine and the kind of defensive manoeuvre that anybody with anything less that shit–fer–brains can see straight through. But notwithstanding – and despite (3) and (7) – that “Songbook Vol. 4” is both form– and content–wise perfectly acceptable stands as a testament to something – god knows what – most probably the kinda weird magic that was in the air that Tokyo evening. These guys oughtta play together more often.

   File under ‘No Wave’. No, really.

   (also file under ‘Free’; the album–cover comes adorned with Mattin’s “anti–copyright” logo so presumably it is/will be available somewhere as a download.) 8/10 — Stephen Clover (6 February, 2007)
3. .

   Paris Transatlantic Dan Warburton

   It’s a shame Jacques Derrida definitively deconstructed himself and left the planet a couple of years ago, as this might have made an ideal Christmas present for him. Mattin has, after all, made as much of a career out of deconstruction as the dear departed maître penseur; for a start, he’s deconstructed rock and roll with Billy Bao and La Grieta, deconstructed the rulebook of free improvisation by popping up with playing partners as wildly different in orientation as Radu Malfatti and Tim Goldie, deconstructed his own record label by making everything he does available as a free download, and arguably deconstructed himself – put it this way, if you booked Mattin for a gig, would you know what to expect? Nah, neither would I. This is the fourth volume of his Songbook series, in which he totally deconstructs the idea of the pop song (though he’s hardly the first to do so – pop and rock have been unravelling slowly for the past quarter of a century in case you hadn’t noticed), improvising the whole gritty mess direct to disc, or rather, straight into the mono input of his Thinkpad. He’s joined on these six “songs” (I suppose we should use the inverted commas) by Taku Unami on bass and piano, Anthony Guerra on guitar and, in the toilet (it says here) Jean-Luc Guionnet on sax and Tomoya Izumi on “shouting”. God knows what was going on in the toilet.. next time I see Jean-Luc I’ll try to find out. Meanwhile, this disc – only 22 minutes long but nicely produced with good liner notes by Toné Gorgoron, whoever s/he is – comes with a mission statement outlining the, um, ethos of the Songbook project. It ends with the line “Release the recordings on different labels and laugh at different people’s reactions.” Including, presumably, mine. So I’d better shut up. Suffice it to say I might keep this one a bit longer than Volume 1.
4. .

   ZGUN #3 (Sacramento, February 2009)

   Disclosure” I “brokered” the transaction whereby this disc was released. All profits have disappeared and no books were kept. A cornerstone of the terriblist school of rock & roll, this final entry in the Songbook series finds Mattin “bridging” the “gap” between “improv” and “songwriting” with an all-star Japanese band. To qoute a good friend, this record is beyond good and evil; but mostly it’s evil. Not in your wildest dreams. Acapulco Rodriguez
5. .

   Ruta 66

   El prolífico francotirador vasco MATTIN aparece
   por partida doble en cuarto volumen de la serie improvisatoria <> (Azul Discográfica), y colaborando junto al saxofonista argentino Lucio Capece en NO MORE MUSIC AT THE SERVICE OF CAPITAL <> (Ideal).
   En el primero, grabado en directo en Tokyo, aberra al frente de un cuarteto, horadando la paciencia de los contados espectadores con metronómicas esquizofrenias y escupitajos avant rock que precisan ser observados desde la distancia irónica, en contraposicion a esa faceta de cantautor provocateur
6. .

   The Wire (London, March 2007)
   Outer Limits
   Keith Hollings

   Mattin could probably write a very nice song if he chose to, but it’s probably better for everyone that he doesn’t. Instead he makes up stuff and records it straight into his Thinkpad T42 laptop, using its constricted internal microphone to pick up his singing, along with some guitars and a couple of people down the hall shouting and playing sax together in the toilet. Mattin really makes you not want to care. He takes things serisously so you don’t have to. ” I know you cannot survive any of my desires,” he intones at one particularly intense moment in the session, which took place somewhere in Tokyo last summer. He doesn’t have to tell you twice.
7. .

   Squid Ear (USA)

   Despite what the company he sometimes keeps might suggest, Mattin is one of the biggest things going in punk. He is, when he wants to be, loud, brutal, lo-fi and strident. His songbook series is some of his most overtly rock stuff, improvised songs (verse and chorus) recorded into the internal mike on a laptop. And true to punk form, Volume 4 (two of the previous three are available for free download on his website, http://mattin.org) rushes by, six songs in 22 minutes. Recorded live in Tokyo in 2006 with four other musicians (two of them in the club’s toilet), it’s loose and ugly. The band (Taku Unami on bass and piano, Anthony Guerra on guitar, Jean-Luc Guionnet on sax and Tomoya Izumi providing additional shouting) includes some other typically quiet musicians, and they retain a sense of sparseness despite the overdrive. The improvised song forms, played without drums, make the album sound something like a Suicide quintet. It’s cool, it’s raw - your parents wouldn’t like it, and your kids probably won’t either.
   Kurt Gottschalk 2008-05-07

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