Matthew Herbet - What's he use?

funk313 · Post by **funk313** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 2:45 pm

saw this dude in copenhagen this summer. maaaaaan was i bored to death..klikkety klikkety klonk pling plong..i mean yeah it is facinating to hear an egg roll around in a bawl for some time and all that veggie shit but the FRIGGIN MUSIC just bored me to hell..im sorta just REALLY REALLY tired of this "wow look at me conceptual art" (at one point dude was just sitting down and eating his food, yeah and i know sum of u will still call this art and it probably is, but its also still very very BORING to look at) bullshit IF the music doesnt rock..later on that night the main DnB crew here had a birthdayrave with grimecrews from London..at some point i think they were hittin the brown note cuz the bass was so friggin LOUD n DEEP and i had to take a shit all the time..now that folks is real practical conceptual art

Benshik · Post by **Benshik** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:14 pm

[quote="funk313"bullshit IF the music doesnt rock..[/quote]

there's a whole tradition in avant-garde/noise of trying hard to make music with non traditional instruments. The weirder, the better... If you read "the wire" and are playing gongs with ur toe nails, you're set to be cool in these circles

Having a couple of friends into that kind of stuff, Ive been to lots of avant garde concerts, and I find them almost all formidably boring. This is mostly due to their complete rejection of the notion of humour and fun...
But i also think that these guys, on another level, also have something interesting to tell. for me raves can also be formidably boring coz the music is soooo shite and only a question of goosebumps. loud volumes compensate for total lack of creativity... anyway, to go back on our avant-garde experimentalists, once i watched a concert by a fragile-looking artist blowin in bottles on stage. it was fuckin horrible. the guy was just blowing in an empty beer bottle. a rightwing neo conservative-looking guy in the assistance suddenly got on stage and removed the microphone from him. the poor little guy looked totally humiliated... ok, the "music" was bad, but the crowd's animosity towards it kinda made me sad...
avant garde already accounts for such a tiny little part of all the music that is being done, why crush them even more???

Hedroom · Post by **Hedroom** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:49 pm

Personally I've got a lot of repect for Herbert.

undaria · Post by **undaria** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:01 pm

maybe his record(ing)s are more musical and interresting then what he put on stage.
i have this 12" of m.herbert from the late 90' were he uses samples of bottles and bwaaurps and bottleblowing. good arrangment and editing, not so possible in "live"circumstances.
for me it's no more arty then other music.

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:32 pm

Splashmas wrote:Personally I've got a lot of repect for Herbert.

me too. He is quite proficient at what he does, I like his ideas and one day, if technology prevails, or he learns how to push it even farther, I think I will be really into his improvisational music for it's own sake. MInd you I am at least as critical of my own, trite, interpretive thought noodlings.

In the meantime, I would still like to know the distinction betwenn conceptual art, and highly conceptual art.

I feel he falls into the category of concept art- the one that isn't non-conceptual art.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:37 pm

^^^^^Werd. I can definitely see his projects maturing quite a bit, and the sounds becoming more and more interesting.

Highly conceptual art isn't recognised as art at all by anyone its creators. I wouldn't go that far with Herbert, though...

sonsofthehounds · Post by **sonsofthehounds** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 6:07 pm

Bodily Functions is fcking top and the big band show was pretty hot........

playing 2 kaoss pads and one of those roland time stretch sampler things and creating the samples live, pretty fun....eccentric chap, a real tefal head.

sure, the plink plonk can get to you.

Nightrider · Post by **Nightrider** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 8:10 pm

Machinate wrote:
Benshik wrote:My fear is that Herbert will get ppl tired of this stuff before the rest of us can come along and make things right again

I'm hearing you Machinate.

As for "highly Concetual Art" I'm talking about the fact that there's more of a reason there for producing this than 'the sound' 'the record deal'.

But at the end of the day, with art being the subjective/non-subjective form of expression it is, a concept is all that one comes up with as a means to understand this/that (used to reference the ephemeral quality of performance) in front of there eyes. Life is a concept.

Nightrider · Post by **Nightrider** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 8:17 pm

ok I didn't need to use the word "high" or "highly"

David · Post by **David** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 8:57 pm

I think he recorded a lot of sounds from the human body for his 'Bodily Functions' album...I think he might have even recorded sounds from his pregnant gf's tummy...

Mbazzy · Post by **Mbazzy** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:39 pm

Nightrider wrote:
parma wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A5110363
An interesting read but not the nitty gritty I was after.

How does he play his stuff live? I mentioned somewhere that he uses a smapler and JESSE you said he's using Ableton now? Do you have anymore details?

Thanks

Nice link ... can some of the hardware proficient guys explain how he pulls it off to record his samples , and is in the possibility to play that sample back without anything else ... and I don't think there has been any editing in the documentary.

He makes the sound , and on the fly the sound is recorded and is almost cut to the correct length ...

Can hardware samplers be set to record based on incoming audiosignal ? Can sw. samplers do this ?

(As you might suspect I haven't used much samplers so far , cutting/creating samples in the editor ...)

David · Post by **David** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:42 pm

I think he also made an album out of crushing coffee cups in starbucks....I dont think he likes starbuck's...

dm · Post by dm » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:01 am

he hates staarbucks, etc. hes very PC. i like his music and his live process, but maybe matmos (who use a similar live process) tend to rock a bit more.

funkbo · Post by **funkbo** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:31 pm

my older herbert records are like really good friends!

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:05 am

Mbazzy wrote:
Nightrider wrote:
parma wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A5110363
An interesting read but not the nitty gritty I was after.

How does he play his stuff live? I mentioned somewhere that he uses a smapler and JESSE you said he's using Ableton now? Do you have anymore details?

Thanks
Nice link ... can some of the hardware proficient guys explain how he pulls it off to record his samples , and is in the possibility to play that sample back without anything else ... and I don't think there has been any editing in the documentary.

He makes the sound , and on the fly the sound is recorded and is almost cut to the correct length ...

Can hardware samplers be set to record based on incoming audiosignal ? Can sw. samplers do this ?

(As you might suspect I haven't used much samplers so far , cutting/creating samples in the editor ...)

Samplers have a "truncate" function for cutting samples to where there's actually sound.
He's so quick at these machines (live he used a very ancient one with very little memory - enough for 1 or 2 samples - , in the vid he has an Emu Ultra), and this makes it so fascinating. He had a beat going literally in seconds, though I would guess he had some pre-recorded bass drum sounds on a sort of HD recorder, so building the textures (e.g. sampling Dani hitting her teeth with her finger) took about 10 seconds, and then the other stuff came in and the piano player started as well.
Above all, I think that he has a good grasp of acting/theatrical techniques. He's always moving and generally very entertaining to watch (e.g. when he sampled the typewriter at the big band show).