The concept of this album was being discussed long before anyone heard the music: Seven songs, mostly pieced together using sounds recorded during medical procedures. Yes, M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel (the men of Matmos) actually donned surgical masks and brought their DATs into operating rooms to record the sounds of a liposuction, nose jobs, and so on. They then used their computers to shape and process the sounds into actual compositions.
The two made a similar stab at high-concept music-making with their second album, Quasi Objects. I owned that one for a time, but ultimately got rid of it because it seemed too reliant on novelty. On that record, the gimmick-- music based on sounds recorded around their home (e.g. whoopee cushions, etc.)-- smothered the music. The test of any conceptual record is how well it stands on its own, removed from the angle. And A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure is a first-rate work, even if you're unfamiliar with the backstory.
That said, knowing the concept behind this record adds plenty to the enjoyment. Take "For Felix (And All the Rats)", for example. The music alone, which consists of what sounds like Tony Conrad-style detuned string drones and an African thumb piano, is striking and needs no explanation. But when we discover that the track was made using sounds coaxed from an empty rat's cage (Matmos applied a violin bow to the bars to mimic the strings, and then plucked the bars for the thumb piano sound), it adds a rich layer of meaning. As a commentary on innocent life in bondage, it's just as powerful as a photograph of an eyeless monkey in restraints. Both the concept and the execution of "For Felix" are brilliant individually, and taken together, the effect is almost overpowering; it's a terribly sad and heartbreaking piece of music. None of the other tracks feature such a strong conceptual coup, but the rest vary from decent to great.
When Matmos recorded the sound of the instruments used in laser eye surgery, they were smart enough to realize that the buzzing instrumentation bore a marked resemblance to a Roland 303, and hence, we have the wired electro of "L.A.S.I.K." A speech record used to teach enunciation to the hearing-impaired serves as the basis of "Spondee", with the perfect elocution of the therapist used as rhythmic counterpoint to a devastatingly funky house rhythm. There are a few horn stabs interlaced with the clubby groove, but the more punchy accents come from a tool used to clean sinus cavities.
Which illustrates another reason A Chance to Cut is such a success: It uses a fresh sound palette. If you've spent any time listening to the post-Autechre world of IDM, you're probably aware that most programmers aren't getting everything they should out of Reaktor. All those familiar buzzes, squelches and clicks are starting to wear out their welcome; hearing Matmos work magic with material clearly recorded in the field makes me realize what I've been missing. Sounds provide feelings even when they're not playing melodies-- so much of the art in this kind of music is assembling the basic substance.
But if it's melodies you want, Matmos deliver in that department, too. "California Rhinoplasty" takes a bleep from some kind of surgical monitor and pitch-shifts it into something hummable, until the song morphs into an ethereal cloud of gentle chords and cutting machines (no doubt buzzing through some nose cartilage). As with the rest of the record, even if you didn't know the song title or the sources, it would still sound great.
