Supreme Balloon | 
| Artist: Matmos
Label: Matador Records
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $4.99 (33%)
New (43) Used (8) from $8.90
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 40519
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.3
MPN: 10799
UPC: 744861079927
EAN: 0744861079927
ASIN: B00166QJUM
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: not shrink wrapped, small sticker/ mark on case, but brand new!
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| Tracks:
| • | Rainbow Flag | | • | Polychords | | • | Mister Mouth | | • | Exciter Lamp | | • | Les Folies Francaises | | • | Supreme Balloon | | • | Cloudhopper |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Label Description:
This record finds the band skipping sampling antics in favor of a lighthearted "cosmic pop" record made entirely out of synthesizers. The exotic and antiquated synths used here heavily spotlight the classic 60s/70s/80s consumer electronic rigs of Arp, Korg, Roland, Waldorf, and Moog. But there are also one of a kind curios present. Double LP in heavy duty Stoughton gatefold, pressed in HQ 180-gram vinyl. MP3 coupon. Vinyl includes four extra tracks. CD in digipak with 8-page booklet.
Album Description
Matmos is M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, aided and abetted by many others. In their recordings and live performances over the last nine years, Matmos have used the sounds of: amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, a bowed five string banjo, slowed down whistles and kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout groove of a vinyl record, a $5.00 electric guitar, liposuction surgery, cameras and VCRs, getting the pictures...out there and everywhere! Supreme Balloon is their 2008 flight into fancy!
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| Customer Reviews:
Synth alert! May 10, 2008
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Be forewarned: Matmos has embraced synth, and every burp, blip and wave that comes with it.
In fact, their latest album "Supreme Balloon" is inflated to maximum with endless quantities of synth, and they seem pretty determined to use every last shred. And while not as endearing as their more organic past work, it does sound like a maddened musician was let loose in a room full of computers -- wonky, silly and lightheartedly spacey.
It opens with a weird fluttery noise... which turns out to be a beat that runs throughout "Rainbow Flag." No real vocals here -- just a weird frolicksome beat that sounds like a video game in the middle of an acid trip. About two-thirds of the way through, some little trippy fairy voices join in the song, getting shriller as the wonky song winds down.
Then they take the exact opposite approach with "Polychords" -- this one is all electronic stomp, which devolves into a spacey, grim trip riddled with shimmery moog. And then we get all kinds of intensely synthy weirdness -- chirpy schizophrenic dancepop, a prolonged quiver of echoing synth, and a spacey little electro-ambient ballad that just sort of floats off. It sounds like a bunch of stoned aliens abducting people.
But wait!
There's also a twenty-five-minute-long title track, whose apparent ambition is to cram every kind of compatible electronic music into one... long... song. It opens with a sort of growly bubbling sound, and evolves through electronic pop to trippy dance, from wonky experimental stuff back to a sort of odd growly space-electrorock.
Frankly it took me a LONG time to figure out if I even liked "Supreme Balloon" -- upon hearing the first sharp electronic blips, my first thought was, "Good Lord, I need to go listen to an album about roses having teeth in the mouth of a beast!"
But after I listened to the first few songs -- and yes, even the gargantuan title track -- I started to like it. There's a sunny, weird exuberance to this music, as if you're watching a bunch of mildly insane robots having some kind of festival. There are moments of excessive artiness, but their brand of techno manages to be both fun and extremely strange at the same time.
And the synthesizers do a pretty wild job here -- they flutter, dart, screech, chirp like a cricket, pop, squirt, blip, burp, slurp, shimmer and squiggle. We have everything from waves of stately mellotron to grimy stomping synth, eruptions of video-game carnival sounds to a stretch of gentle, wintry ambient music. Yet gods, I'm not even sure what half these sounds come from.
The most daunting of all these songs is undoubtedly the title track, with its half-hour runtime and ever-shifting sound. But as eccentric as this song is, it really shows the expanse of what Matmos can do, even with restricted instruments.
Matmos' first venture into pure, unadulterated synth is a risky one, and the result isn't their best work. But "Supreme Balloon" has a weird, sunny charm all its own.
matmos gone all colorful July 3, 2008
J. Mccarther (Houston, TX USA)
My perception of Matmos (mostly from hearing A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure) was one of a rather abstract, intentionally offbeat, but surgically precise laptoptronica outfit. Though on Civil War they were a bit more playful, this album seems totally foreign. They utilize alot of legendary modular synthesizers for this one, so analog enthusiasts will be greatly pleased. The music is definitely not very pop friendly. Something akin to a marriage of Walter Carlos and concept albums from Yes. Some really long compositions on here, and everything from from chattering computer noise to deep brooding subterranean synth. I like it.
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