Preview Matmos’ New Album Made Entirely Of Washing Machine Sounds

Preview Matmos’ New Album Made Entirely Of Washing Machine Sounds

Experimental IDM duo Matmos have made electronic music from samples of medical procedures, the percussive sounds of a rat cage, Civil War folk songs, and parapsychological experiments, and their latest conceptual framework is this: their new album Ultimate Care II was made entirely out of the sounds generated by a Whirlpool Ultimate Care II model washing machine in the basement of their Baltimore home. Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt enlisted a number of local musicians to help out with the project — meaning playing the machine like a drum, processing its audio, or sending MIDI data to samplers — including Dan Deacon, Jason Willett of Half Japanese, Max Eilbacher and Sam Haberman of Horse Lords, and Needle Gun’s Duncan Moore, “some of whom regularly do laundry at Matmos’ home,” according to a press release. And, of course, the album cover was made by New York artist Ted Mineo using digitally manipulated photographs of the specific washing machine in question. Listen to an excerpt from the LP below.

Ultimate Care II is out 2/19 on Thrill Jockey. Pre-order it here.

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