Weview Woundup!

Here are all the reviews (heh...that I know of...) of my new EP, Seasick Blackout:

I made DaveX's 2009 Top 12!  Thanks Dave!

10) Matt Weston — “Seasick Blackout” – I haven’t been this excited about an EP since… well, I don’t know when. I’ll grant you that I’m a bit manic, but my sustained interest usually means I’m on track. “Seasick Blackout” has got me riveted, and I’ve played it for anyone I can corner with a speaker and 20 minutes to spare. If I beat you over the head with one release this year, it’s this one– so go get it, and buy an extra for a friend.

From Moors Magazine (via Google Translator):

You can, if your music, very many different ways on adventures. Matt Weston has decided to open a container pokkeherrie attract and again to go mess and rampant slide.  And that rubs pinches and properly, may I say. But adventures do not always sweet juicy stories, and thus, you can sometimes end up in a rough storm. And the rough seas of Weston is really exciting to listen, because in all the wrenching sound carpets is still a lot of subtlety hidden in quiet shifting sounds, rhythms and abrasive sound awkward combinations. No background music this, because then you can ever really seasick, but if you're willing to listen with open ears, the musical adventure of Matt Weston definitely worth a listening.

Here's Vital Weekly:

As his new CD proves, american percussionist and composer Matt Weston continues to built on his universe of music of gigantic proportions by making little steps. Every now and then Weston releases a CD-single through his label 7272Music. We have reported earlier of his releases here as you might remember and because of this it may satisfy to encounter him again in Vital Weekly. And yes, there is good reason to it. Also "Seasick Blackout" is another outspoken statement by Weston. With his newest CD-single he presents his newest compositions that take about 5 up to 7 minutes. Three tracks only, "You're Not That's Right", "I Just Saw Fog And Dust" and "This October, All Octobers". Everything is composed, played, arranged, and produced by Weston himself. Although these compositions underwent considerable manipulations, at the same time the music has a strong live feeling, which is part of the secret. The acoustics of his drum and percussion sound very spatial. The noise and electronics are of a raw quality. Experimentalists like Weston not always have the talent to make music their music emotionally engaging and moving. In the case of Weston it is. Another part of his secret. Like in his earlier work Weston creates again big gestures and orchestral maneuvers from unusual ingredients. For sure Weston opens a new dimension to percussion-orientated music. (DM)

From Furthernoise:

Matt Weston’s Seasick Blackout is his fourth solo EP on his own 7272Music imprint, and I must admit I have been enjoying Mr. Weston’s prolific output of plaintive yet agitated sounds. Keeping each release paired down was probably a decision to deliberately allow us to absorb his sensibility without getting overwhelmed. You’re Not That Right, is the hardest to get through, and you may literally begin to feel vertigo set in less than halfway through. Only the clanking percussion loops provide stability to what feels like a falling scaffold.

I just saw Fog and Dust outlines Weston’s key sense of acoustic space and the room sounds live and breathing. A cacophony of reed instrument resembling what could be mistaken for a flock of migratory birds initiates Weston’s percussion technique of making his drum kit sound like a demonised horn ensemble or an Idiophone Hell choir. At least I am assuming he is scraping cymbals, snares and god knows what. The only other musician I know that comes close to this type of expressiveness is Hans Reichel. Reichel invented a thin wood electro-acoustic instrument called a Daxophone that when bowed, fretted, or struck expressed a wide variety of vocal like sounds. Unlike Reichel, Weston transforms his drum kit into tortured Idiophones expressing angst and melancholy.

The third and last track, This October, All October, begins with a sinister synth arpeggiation which follows a path of pure evil. The drums build, a sonic chaos reaches maximum level then what appears to be a train horn begins to blasts away at regular intervals. Perhaps this is Matt Weston’s homage to Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori, only you are tied to the tracks as a wailing locomotive rushes toward you.

From Ragazzi (via Google Translator):

"Seasick Blackout" is a mini (?) Maxi (?) - CD, 3 songs on it, 17 minutes long. Matt Weston is a percussionist, modernists. What instrument bore the sounds that are heard at the three noisy tracks, it is not specified. Perhaps an electronically distorted saxophone? Percussion is, though not played as the instruments are designed and constructed. The onomatopoeic sound universe is quite nice, somehow understandable and certainly entertaining, but in its highly unusual and probably only feed ultraschrägen sound language for avant-garde beyond melody.
Music is it anyway, if it sounds. Sure. Live is what comes out of the speakers as involuntary, certainly witty as part of the performance of the musician and graphic so suddenly in the seclusion of the home sounds a little to awaken horror, simply because it is not clear how they are made, what they should talk (except inspire and) and what can be expected from a fully played CD.
"I Just Saw Fog and Dust" takes free jazz in itself, the ostensible Minimalschleifen however, could pass as straight parody, for metal guitar riffs. Then the awful grinding and scratching noises coming from drums, perhaps perched basins, confident and clearly fall into the room and nothing and no one has fear. The invasion has something threatening, albeit not in a bad crowd. Anyone who has courage and is looking for new sounds on every conceivable way out, which here has any idea how music can sound if you want to start from scratch. After 2009. And everything.
For music it is, although it sounds.

From Sea Of Tranquility.  And yes, my record does demand a lot from the listener.  It demands that the listener send me a box of Bugles.

American percussionist / composer Matt Weston obviously doesn't subscribe to the theory that his music needs to follow conventional forms. The music he records under his own name is difficult to categorize, but after listening to his latest collection of music, the three song EP Seasick Blackout, I think it would be safe to say his compositions contain a hearty and complex amalgamation of many different styles, that when blended together fall firmly into the avant-garde genre.

Seasick Blackout is a wild sounding, seventeen minute orchestral work composed and performed entirely by Weston himself. Don't expect your standard drum work or any straight ahead percussive rhythms because the music presented here is more akin to the type of metallic hammering and clanging one would find in an old shipyard. Perhaps that was Weston's intention when putting this together as these densely layered songs feature large amounts of said metallic percussion, combined with an equally as generous amount of textured and sometimes abrasive sounding electronic treatments. Either way it's not an easy listen.

I'll be honest and say that Seasick Blackout will demand quite a bit from the listener, and depending on your point of view these compositions will either be perceived as brilliant stabs at music concrète or just seventeen minutes of cacophonous noise. I'm pretty certain this disc is either going to be one of those 'you either love it or hate it' kind of listening experiences for most people, although there may be some listeners who like myself might find themselves sitting on the middle of the fence after all is said and done. I can certainly appreciate the overall avant-garde feel of Seasick Blackout and what he's doing musically on this three song sonic collage, and yet at the same time I wasn't entirely convinced that this is a disc that I'll need to return to on a regular basis. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Seasick Blackout is a bit of a head scratcher in the end. 

The One True Dead Angel...you are all of those things and more.

Considering Weston is primarily a percussionist, it's kind of interesting that this EP opens with muted, bleating sax lines on "You're Not That's Right." Eventually spare, metallic percussion does come in, but the sax remains the dominant element of the song, right up until the percussion fades out. There's a similar strategy at work on "I Just Saw Fog and Dust," where the saxophone is more focused on a repeating pattern, sounding like a sped-up bird call; when the percussion arrives, this time it's louder and more insistent, with a sound that's far more busy and active, and this time more forward in the mix (although it never completely drowns out the sax). The final track, "This October, All Octobers," features a reverb-heavy sound in which the booming drums are considerably more prominent than the trilling, buzzing sax work. Weston's free approach to percussion makes an interesting counterpoint to the highly controlled saxophone lines, and his latest compositions are among his most intriguing.

Delusions of Adequacy:

I like my experimental art noise to be an experience – something that happens to me, a statement I can bear witness to. Preferably, this happens somewhere else besides my house. Seasick Blackout, a short EP of performance noise, fails to connect as an album.

I can appreciate challenges to my role as a listener, Matt’s as an artist, and our turn from the traditions and contexts of listening to recorded sound. But in this case, left to my own devices, I didn’t get it.

Seasick Blackout is an orchestral work entirely composed, arranged, performed, and produced by Matt Weston. The sounds are largely unpleasant, the theme is tortured, and the feel is a bit horrific. The first  track reveals sparse, wailing instruments. The second comes like grating insanity, worse than birds chirping outside your window when you’re sleeping late. The third and final track is a scraping piss, an orchestra distant and a train approaching.

Pretty much no chance you’ll like this because most people who come here want something very different from Seasick Blackout.

[What can I say, other than that I don't make experimental art noise.  I don't even know what that is, nor have I ever heard any.  But "unpleasant," "tortured," and "horrific"?  Who are you, my ex-wife?  (rimshot)]

Ah, Monsiuer Delire...we meet again.

Experimental percussionist Matt Weston works on a small scale: Eps on his mcrilable 7272music.  Seasick Blackout is the first of those Eps that actually strikes.  In the course of three tracks, Weston unfolds treasures of noise ingenuity: rubbing, scratching, sliding.  And it's not overdone, and it's enjoyable, and it has artistic flare.  Bravo.

Smother Magazine...you make me want to smother you with hugs!

Experimental noise and compositions that is staggeringly different from most anything this side of John Zorn that you can find. It’s weird and different and sure and if you give it a chance (and you damn well better), can help propel your musical tastes into a whole new surreal chapter. Not for the feint of heart.

Just because it's not mean, that doesn't mean it's not true!  Or, no, wait...if it's mean, then it's true, because it's not mean...hold on...if it's not true, then the meanness is...

(last in the alphabet, first in our hearts, from Stanley Zappa's It Is Not Mean If It Is True)

Hey, how did Matt Weston get the sounds in my head on to that CD?  Seasick...blackout -- been there, done that, and now I know what it sounds like: scary, ubercontrolled in an out-of-controlled way, dark and loud.  A contemporary tone poem about Man cowering and pissing himself in the face of an/our/the ever increasing mechanized brutalization of society and the brutal mechanization of culture--and mechanized brutality's reaction.  The experience of listening on the way to work (catering a wake) in a snow storm, driving a traction-free Ford truck that not only wants to bankrupt me but kill me too, Seasick Blackout was so totally appropriate it was as if the CD wasn't even on.  Once it was over, in the silent din of my own thoughts amid winter driving conditions, I realized that should I ever find myself high on LSD, Seasick Blackout will either be the last thing I'll listen to or the only thing I'll listen to.  One of those kinds of records.

Comments

[andujar]

you could always send a copy to WMUA for their experimental music library.

WMUA 91.1 fm
105 Campus center
Umass
Amherst, MA
01003

[andujar]

also...i hope you are enjoying the changing into warmer climes.

cheers,
brendon rule