Matmos
M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel at Pitchfork Music Festival 2006
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, U.S.
Genres	Electronic experimental glitch ambient techno IDM post-industrial
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Matador Thrill Jockey Smithsonian Folkways
Members	M.C. Schmidt Drew Daniel
Website	Official Site

Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo formed in San Francisco and currently based in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing twelve full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician Björk, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with Thrill Jockey in 2012.^[1] The name Matmos refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film Barbarella.^[2]

In 1998, Matmos remixed the Björk single "Alarm Call". Subsequently, the duo worked with Björk on her albums Vespertine (2001) and Medúlla (2004), as well as the Vespertine and Greatest Hits tours. In November 2004, Matmos spent 97 hours in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as artists-in-residence, performing music with friends, musical guests and onlookers. The live album Work, Work, Work, essentially a "best of" collection of the session, was released as a free download from their website.

Matmos gained notoriety for their use of unconventional samples including "freshly cut hair" and "the amplified neural activity of crayfish" on their first album^[3] and "recorded the snips, clicks, snaps, and squelches of various surgical procedures, then nipped and tucked them into seven remarkably accessible, melodic pieces of experimental techno" for their album A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure.^[4]

In 2011, Matmos participated in a programmed evening of events with the visual arts organisation Auto Italia South East. The event was produced in collaboration with record label Upset The Rhythm and included contributions from experimental electronic musicians Jon Wiese and Birds of Delay. Matmos have since collaborated with a large number of visual artists and arts organisations, including Cafe Oto and Metal.^[5][6]

In 2015, Matmos appeared in the documentary Soundhunters directed by Beryl Koltz and broadcast on the Franco-German channel arte as well as on many channels abroad.^[7]

In September 2023, the duo announced their forthcoming album Return to Archive, marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Smithsonian Folkways label, with a three-hour free concert at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. in which they remixed field recordings from the label's catalogue in octophonic sound.^[8]

In 2024, Daniel posted a tweet about a new musical genre called "Hit Em" he claims to have been told in a dream while he was asleep; in the tweet he described the genre to be fixed at 212 BPM and ⁵
₄ time signature.^[10][11][12] The post went viral, with electronic music producers attempting to create examples of the fictional genre.^[10][11][12]

Schmidt and Daniel are a couple.^[13]

Daniel received a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation on the literary cult of melancholy directed by Janet Adelman. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University.^[14] This brought the band to relocate from San Francisco to Baltimore in August 2007. Daniel also has a personal dance music project, the Soft Pink Truth. He is a contributing writer to the online music magazine Pitchfork, and has written the 33 1/3 book on Throbbing Gristle's 1979 album 20 Jazz Funk Greats as well as two books of literary criticism.^[14]

Schmidt formerly worked as a teacher in the New Genres Department at the San Francisco Art Institute, and is now a professor of music technology at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute and the president of the High Zero Foundation, which organizes Baltimore's annual High Zero festival of improvised music.^[15]

Both Schmidt and Daniel appeared in the Sagan music film Unseen Forces by Ryan Junell.

• Full On Night Split Disc with Rachel's (2000, Quarterstick)
• California Rhinoplasty (2001 Feb 12, OLE-501)
• Rat Relocation Program (2004)
• For Alan Turing (2006)
• The Ganzfeld EP (2012, on Thrill Jockey 315)^[22][23]

• Matmos Live with J Lesser (2002)
• A Viable Alternative to Actual Sexual Contact, as Vague Terrain Recordings (2002, Piehead Records)
• "A Paradise of Dainty Devices: interludes, micromedia & sound edits" (limited edition of 100, for their "Wet Hot EuroAmerican Summer Tour", 2007)
• Polychords : Promo Single released on Matador
• I Want Snowden/Sheremetyevo Breakdown Blues, split single with the Disco Yahtzee Empire (2013)^[24][25]

• Official website
• Matmos page at Matador Records
• Matmos at Myspace
• Matmos at furious.com