Browse by Artist: SHOEMAKER, MATT

Artist:	SHOEMAKER, MATT
Title:	Isolated Agent/Stranding Behavior
Label:	ELEVATOR BATH
Format:	PIC. DISC
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	EEAOA 031LP

"Elevator Bath's ongoing series of picture disc LPs (each record being adorned with full-color artwork by the recording artist) continues with Matt Shoemaker's debut appearance on vinyl: An enigmatic pairing of new recordings with appropriately cryptic artwork. Much of Shoemaker's recorded output prominently features the use of field recordings (see his Tropical Amnesia One CD), but in this case he has eschewed such grounded measures and has instead sculpted a two-part puzzle which seemingly exists on some other plane(t). Layer upon evolving layer of sonic phenomena is still the methodological trademark, but the content is almost entirely electronic, lending a great deal of vivid color to a description of blackest space. The two works presented here are powerfully mysterious, unsettling examples of Matt Shoemaker's prowess as a composer of details, of moods and tenses. The improbably relevant artwork for this picture disc consists of two collages utilizing Shoemaker's own hand-dyed paper. The images, as well as their meanings, are essentially abstract and yet remarkably familiar. On the A side, the 'Isolated Agent' scuttles in a circular motion, forever locked in an endless search for the unknown element. The B side depicts the constant retreat, the 'Stranding Behavior' inevitably resulting in/from confusion. 'You realize what you are implying? That we owe our human condition here to the intervention of insects.' Matt Shoemaker's music has been released by such labels as Trente Oiseaux, The Helen Scarsdale Agency, and Ferns Recordings. He resides in Seattle. This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 233 copies."

Artist:	SHOEMAKER, MATT
Title:	Soundtrack For Dislocation
Label:	ELEVATOR BATH
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	EEAOA 034CD

"Matt Shoemaker's first full-length album for Elevator Bath is Soundtrack for Dislocation, an entirely self-contained account of a fantastically abstract and intensely personal vision. As with much of Shoemaker's work, this is an album permeated with a very potent sense of unease. And despite the fact that the use of field recordings is very minimal here, there is a no less organically tangible quality which only contributes to the feeling of disquietude. For those unfamiliar with Matt Shoemaker's work, Soundtrack for Dislocation is absolutely the ideal place to start as it is arguably the most fully-realized project in his catalog. All the necessary elements are present: The enigmatic cover and interior images, the cryptic track titles, and of course the recordings themselves - densely packed and elaborately evolved aberrancies, open to various interpretations. Shoemaker seems to have provided more than enough clues to the puzzles he offers in his works but, like the most effective tales, these subtle indications cannot quite account for all that happens. The rest is up to the astute listener who accepts this very inscrutability as the reward. Matt Shoemaker's music has been released by such labels as Trente Oiseaux, The Helen Scarsdale Agency, Mystery Sea, and Ferns Recordings. He resides in Seattle. Packaged inside an extra thick, full-color, matte finish, 6-panel digipak featuring Shoemaker's beautiful photography, this compact disc has been issued in an edition of 509 copies."

Artist:	SHOEMAKER, MATT
Title:	Spots In The Sun
Label:	HELEN SCARSDALE AGENCY
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	HMS 010CD

"Matt Shoemaker pulled his chin away from his hand after several ponderous moments, positing that the title to this electrically-charged opus of encrypted drone holds at least two entry points. The most obvious reference for Spots In The Sun would be the astrophysical study of sunspots with all of the allusions to earthly disturbances triggered by events millions of miles away. Yet, on the other hand, Shoemaker also proposed an earthbound reference to regions of the world that only exist -- perhaps literally, perhaps psycho-geographically -- under the intense glare of sunlight. He then shrugged his shoulders, hoping for an ideal situation in which his audience will confront his work as a vacuum and allow personal references to be drawn from within. In simplest terms, Spots In The Sun is a grotesque, sonic landscape with details exaggerated out of proportion and narratives folded upon themselves in a magnificent abstraction of electro-acoustics, rarefied field recordings, and particulate matter plucked from the ether. Shoemaker works in monochrome, shaping his gray tonalities into rhizomes of shadow which occasionally erupt in brilliance of hyper-realized clarity. While the familiar sounds of encircling birds, turbulent weather, and temple bells litter Shoemaker's recordings, the sonic topography describes a vulgar and hostile landscape where fits of delirium and circadian arrhythmia are common human responses. Shoemaker achieves these complex metaphors through labyrinthine drones spiraling through irradiated fog and glassine vibrations, punctured by the scars of a landscape in perpetual revolt. In many ways, Shoemaker's Spots In The Sun could be mistaken for Bernard Parmegiani at his most focused or even John Duncan at his most gracefully brutal." 2nd edition, regular packaging.

Artist:	SHOEMAKER, MATT
Title:	Erosion Of The Analogous Eye
Label:	HELEN SCARSDALE AGENCY
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	HMS 015CD

"The studio of Matt Shoemaker is alive with electricity. Impossibly complex wirings channel signal in and out of analog synth modules, an array of curious aluminum boxes with unmarked knobs, slinkies strung from ceiling to floor creating a set of giant spring reverb units, accelerometers attached to consumer electronic errata, and even a few conventional tools like guitar stomp boxes and a bruised computer. For all of the convoluted engineering that goes into Shoemaker's equipment, the resulting mesmerism in sound appears effortless and strangely organic. Shoemaker has enjoyed a semi-obscure career through his polymath activities that bridge such electronic experiments with a choice library of globe-trotted field recordings and a broad knowledge of avant-garde cinema. For Erosion of the Analogous Eye, Shoemaker waves his hands about his laboratory to construct an ever-evolving album for mutant dronemuzik. His electrical seas of synthetic bristling undulate with placid regularity, only to find Shoemaker contorting these brain-melting psychedelics into cancerous, atonal bellows. Out of his allotropic shifts, one can find swells of irradiated static transform into the graceful chime of temple bells; and electrical phase patterns slip into deep forest murmurings dotted with narcoleptic birds calls. On one hand, this album is prescient of the revival for progressive electronics currently underway in the flood of US post-noise projects; it's easy to triangulate this between Emeralds and Heldon. But on the other hand, Erosion of the Analogous Eye is the continuation of where Shoemaker had begun with his early work on Trente Oiseaux with its grotesque exaggerations of field recording into this beguiling piece of art. The artwork on Erosion of the Analogous Eye features unique hand-dyed abstractions mounted onto letterpressed paper. This has warranted a very small pressing of 300 copies."

Artist:	SHOEMAKER, MATT
Title:	Warung Elusion
Label:	TRENTE OISEAUX (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	TOC 022

"His music consists of an ever-changing, intricate web of sounds defining spaces in constant transformation. It is very detailed, very present. Transitions between soundscapes, sometimes very slow and very gradual, sometimes very surprising, keep his music going; often different strata of time are present simultaneously. Matt is a master in building and sustaining tension by means of changes in density of sounds and events, as well as by modifying the frequency range of the spectra used. Another interesting quality of his music is that it brings the abstractness of concrete sounds taken out of their context to consciousness. I noted these general impressions while listening to the first of the two pieces, and I'd like to describe the second one in more detail: I can't help but think of it as an immense, surrealist electronic rain forest, filled with tiny noises, far-away calls, and sudden showers of rain. The piece builds up slowly to stay quite intense and urgent over a longer stretch of time, and, after a change in harmony, to end (and finally fade away) in weightlessly floating vastness." --Bernhard G�nter, April 2001.

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