Matthew Herbert

[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...