The Civil War

When one wants to call for a different electronic music he faces sort of a happy few catalogue. All through the years and the Björk experience, Matmos has became indeniably one of these rare bands to provide orchestral different music with a taste for »grandeur and decadence«. »The Civil War« is really an amazing album, a real alternative to american musical history and in many ways a masterwork. Litterally civil war music but also the
soundtrack to what Matmos hears and sees underneath this common picture. Marches and bag pipes, all sorts of instruments you don’t hear anymore, horses and landscapes, ocarina, whistles, xylophone, dulcimer … cowboy revisited, revised, advised. To some extent I should rather say that »The Civil War« is a rare modern western, right in between »Dead Man«, »Lonesome Cowboys« and Charles Ives or Gershwin. Matmos is undoubtly pop, popular, well orchestrated, focused, melodic and mellow, sweet and spiced, lovely. It is a world you enter and won’t leave in the next moment. The Civil War is a great album we all would need to have. Christmas time is coming to town, ask Santa Claus for Matmos.