A Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast

[Patrick]

The unbelievable new Matmos album, 'A Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast,' will be in stores on May 9th.

More information in the next news update - for now check the January update for one of the incredible images from the intense packaging on this album.

http://www.matadorrecords.com/news/2006-01.html

Patrick

[earl grey]

very excited to hear this! i can't remember when i last saw patrick call an album "unbelievable," but if the new songs are as good on album as they were live, then i can totally see it.

[vesper]

hey, i'll have a CD to purchase on my birthday!

[stewrat]

I think they're in the Boston area sometime soon. How is the live experience?

[Patrick]

You might have just missed them - they played with So Percussion in January.

That show was stunning - incredible video visuals and they're just great people to watch.

Patrick

[stewrat]

oops. Guess I'll have to pay better attention. Already have tix for BS/New Pornographers and Cat Power.

[pabost]

I'm really, really liking the mp3. There's something incredibly funny but disconcerting about it. Also, Matmos has a weird way of being intellectual w/out being pretentious, and even if they are a bit pretentious, they have a great sense of humor. Great track.

[earl grey]

man, i didn't even realize an MP3 of this had been posted.

tho i just finished listening to the whole thing ... in a word, wow. super-melodic like 'the civil war' but it totally grooves while still being unmistakably matmos. i figured the larry levan portrait would be my favorite because it absolutely destroyed live, but the william s. burroughs track is something else. sounds like their most accessible record yet ... curious to see what people think of it.

[meglocrush]

does anyone know the name of the pinball machine matmose created the music for? i hadn't heard of it until reading the press release for the new record.

[george]

i really like the first mp3. do you think that it's bjork saying "the rose has teeth in the mouth of the beast" at 1:32?

[earl grey]

i think so ... here's the full rundown of the song from their site:

The song "Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein" is based around a single paragraph from the his text "Philosophical Investigations". For those who would like to sing along, the text appears in part II, chapter eleven, and runs as follows:

"A new born child has no teeth." "A goose has no teeth." "A rose has no teeth." This last at any rate- one would like to say- is obviously true! It is even surer that a goose has none. - And yet it is none so clear. For where should a rose's teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And neither, of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says it has no teeth.- Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast. This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look for teeth in a rose. ((Connexion with 'pain in someone else's body'.))

Our setting of this text features the voice of Laetitia Sonami speaking it aloud, but we also occasionally interject excerpts of other people reading aloud particular phrases. These other kind people are Bjork Gudmundsdottir, Werner Schmidt (M. C.'s brother), Marcus Schmickler, Zum Zoom, and Rose McKereghan. Jay Lesser can be heard playing some twangy electric guitar in the song's final section, but aside from that and the vocals, everything in this song is made from manipulated samples and field recordings of roses, teeth, cows, manure, and geese. In order to animate the scenario described in Wittgenstein's text, we went to a working farm in Sebastopol, California and recorded the sound of cows eating, and of cow manure being shovelled onto roses. Back at the studio, we recorded the sound of fresh roses swinging through the air, and built rhythms out of the sound of dried roses being scraped, shaken, and crushed. In order to create the crispier percussive noises, Erika Clowes loaned us her wisdom teeth (extracted and dried) and we clicked and grinded them against each other. We also sampled noises made by the teeth of cows, goats, sharks, and beavers.

[Fiona]

Review in Sunday's Observer Music Monthly gave the album 4/5.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/10bestcds/story/0,,1756918,00.html

[Patrick]

Wait'll you see the packaging.

Patrick

[Patrick]

Some more details here

http://www.matadorrecords.com/releases

(scroll down past the lists, to the album covers and blurbs)

Patrick

[Patrick]

Oh, and for you who prefer digital packaging (and further details of this will all be in the April news update coming this week) - there will be an "i-booklet" that guides you through the pictures and will be narrated by Martin and Drew, just like you were wearing those headphones and an audio guide at a museum. Ahem. To each her or his own.

And ummm, that will be an iTunes exclusive. But you'll also get the Yukio Mishima track if you buy the whole record, and that will be available for all the digital retailers (and unavailable on the physical release, unless you live in Japan). I'd still go physical, but as I said, chacun a son gout (assuming that the special characters won't reproduce properly in every browser. Pretentious enough?)

Patrick

[Dave]

It should be noted that the Yukio Mishima bonus track IS on the LP. Of course the LP does not have the die-cut sleeve like the CD, but it does have a gatefold sleeve with a great time-line of all the subjects involved.

Dave

[tinobeat]

my head is spinning trying to keep up!

[vesper]

why is no one talking about this album?! apart from just how incredible the music is, i feel like i could write a full paper on the cover and the "framing" of the concept/audio/presentation. easily one of the best matador records i've purchased; everybody, artists and label, obviously put a lot of care into this record, so, to return to my first question, why is no one talking about this album?!?!

[tinobeat]

I just picked it up, and I intend to play the shit out of it tomorrow at work.

What I'll say now is that you guys outdid yourselves with this packaging. how friggin awesome! I have Wittgenstein as the cover at the moment.

[urbanpollution]

Hi Matmos fans,

We did a review of this album. Our writer really liked it! You can read here:

http://www.urbanpollution.com/Music/Matmos/The_Rose_Has_Teeth_in_the_Mouth_of_a_Beast/

I didn't write it, but please feel free to comment politely!

Enjoy!

[vesper]

i'm all for long reviews and all, but you really only needed one paragraph -- specifically the last paragraph. of course, this is an album worth spilling 1,000s of words over, so i understand why the review is so long. i guess it just didn't say much that hasn't been said elsewhere. still a good review, but my gripe is that i keep wanting different takes on the album and i'm only reading about the same songs and the same tricks and the same guests.

[tinobeat]

"Solo Buttons For Joe Meek" is kickin my ass right now.

[earl grey]

why is no one talking about this album?!

hey i've been doing my best! yeah it's totally great. the william s. burroughs track is prolly my favorite but i dig it all.

but i agree, matmos gets unfairly overlooked in general. their reputation (bjork's backing band + the "weird" sounds) is great for getting people interested, but i also think it scares some off. (though it shouldn't ... especially with the last two albums!)

[Mark Ohe]

thanks for the kind words re the pakaging.
yeah, a lot of effort went into making this one work, especially on the part of mr. rex ray out san fran way.

mark o