I took a shot in the dark in October 2017.
I asked Matmos for permission to use their music for my film Birthmark. A rough cut of the film used their track called Sun on 5 at 152. It was a refrain at the beginning of each new chapter that I called “The Blinking Cursor.” It was only supposed to be an editing placeholder. I got attached. If I got official permission, it would save me the time to hire a musician to emulate it.
I’ve been a long time fan of Matmos. To my delight, they wrote “no problem.” I replied:
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. With your blessing, I feel great responsibility to do right by you, your art, your fans, and those who have yet to be introduced to Matmos. I take this honour with utmost gratitude and hope to share the results with you by spring of next year…
As I was getting ready to send the completed film to Matmos, I realized that I was one year late.
I wanted to do something extra. They just released a new album a couple of weeks ago. As a way of saying thanks, I made a special video just for them to enjoy. I chose the title track Plastic Anniversary and made the obvious choice of using footage of old industrial films on plastics found in the Prelinger Archives.
By synchronizing these images, I gained a deeper appreciation of the music. As I cut together the video, I imagined them both as the (mad) scientists swilling, spinning, tossing, spinning, and twirling those beakers and test tubes in the sound lab to come out with this symphony.
I joined in this mad science with my own style of alchemical mixology.
I’m a placement artist positioning one word or image in tandem with each other. While making this, I thought of my heroes Alan Berliner and Chuck Workman. Works like these show off their editing chops. I love making these kinds of videos. Stay tuned for more. Much love and enjoy! LA
Meanwhile, check out the entire album here — https://matmos.bandcamp.com/