Matthew Herbert

[ramshackle]

Who likes this guy? I've seen him do entire shows where he samples everything there and then live on stage. Like...1000 people crunching into an apple provided for them at the beginning of the concert. 1,2,3..CRUNCH. He samples the noise and then does it again at the next venue on the tour...Then he mixes them all up in his studio and sticks it somewhere on this album. How cool's that? Oh yeah, and all the apples provided come from local suppliers to the venue..

[Tiggi]

Don't know anything about him.

Inventive certainly, but smacks a little of gimmickry to me ?!

[Music Head]

Don't know anything about him.

Inventive certainly, but smacks a little of gimmickry to me ?!

yea, but he knows he'll sell at least 1000 albums.

[ramshackle]

Yeah,he's got a lot of tricks up his sleave. he's quite a wizard on stage, puts on superb visual displays, has an often pollitical slant to his projects which seem to renew themselves quicker than i have chance to catch them and he is also a great DJ.. dr rockit - 100lbs. He has his own record label - accidental records

[JonG]

There is more to Matthew Herbert than his "gimmicks". If that's all he was he'd be quite boring. He's actually a very skilled musician. I've been a fan for years and have several of his releases -

100 lbs / Around the House / Bodily Functions / The Audience / On Your Feet / Plat Du Jour / Scale / One One

The title of this thread is misleading. I don't find this to be much of a profile.

[Tiggi]

^ I defer to your superior subject knowledge, Jon.

[JonG]

Tig, I suggest checking out his Around the House and Bodily Functions as an introduction to his work. Both are quite accessible and song-based with vocals from his then-partner Dani Siciliano and have a jazz/deep house feel.

From his website:

"“When everything I read politically and watch and hear has been absorbed, there comes a point where you must feel it viscerally otherwise you are closed to the horrors of it and thus closed to the possibility of action, closed to the idea that you could make a difference or could have prevented the outcome. This internalising of the struggle, the friction, the melancholy I feel should be at the emotional core of the work. After all, I am making music and not writing a newspaper article. But with the invention of the sampler, I can now explicitly root my work in the literal, critical present. I can describe the real in the frame of the imaginary.”

...He has worked in other media too, including scoring ballet, fashion shows, and theatre – his music has been presented at the Royal Court, on Broadway and the Almeida. His collaborators have ranged from the playwright Caryl Churchill to purveyor of radical cuisine Heston Blumenthal. He has scored ten feature films, notably 1999's Human Traffic, writing for full, 80 piece orchestras in some instances. Whether performing or Djing, he has played all over the world to sell-out crowds, including venues such as the Sydney Opera House and Hollywood Bowl."

[Tiggi]

Looks interesting. I shouldn't be so dismissive, should I ??

Will check out in due course.

[ramshackle]

I was lucky enough to play in his band 'Plat Du Jour'...i was on second keyboards.
All the sounds i was playing were samples of food...coffee, bread, water(bottle), sugar etc.
And last year i was in sydney and i saw him perform at the Opera House with his Big Band featuring Eska Mtungwazi. Half the band were english and half of them were locals (saving buckets of money in plane fares no doubt). Then later that night he was DJing in the speigeltent. Lot's of fun!

[Tiggi]

Someone posted about this guy back in the Summer (that's July for our antipodean members):

Who likes this guy? I've seen him do entire shows where he samples everything there and then live on stage. Like...1000 people crunching into an apple provided for them at the beginning of the concert. 1,2,3..CRUNCH. He samples the noise and then does it again at the next venue on the tour...Then he mixes them all up in his studio and sticks it somewhere on this album. How cool's that? Oh yeah, and all the apples provided come from local suppliers to the venue..

And I was pretty dismissive:

Don't know anything about him.

Inventive certainly, but smacks a little of gimmickry to me ?!

But JonG put me straight:

There is more to Matthew Herbert than his "gimmicks". If that's all he was he'd be quite boring. He's actually a very skilled musician. I've been a fan for years and have several of his releases -

100 lbs / Around the House / Bodily Functions / The Audience / On Your Feet / Plat Du Jour / Scale / One One

The title of this thread is misleading. I don't find this to be much of a profile.

So I've bought this CD.

It's a good album, consisting of Jazzy, Soulful vocals (in the vicinity of Jamiroquai, although it's a girly vocalist), backed by all manner of electronic music/beats. The beats are deceptively simple, by which I mean they're much more stylish and sophisticated than they superficially sound.

The images on the cover continue for another 13 pages in the booklet, and are photos of an exhaustive "list" of every item used in the production of the album (mic stands, instruments, sample sources, microphones, laptops, recording gear etc). Like the way he thinks, but I fear he may be suffering from OCD...