Send "Matthew Herbert " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The first wave of DJs had to overcome an astounding number of barriers that were, in retrospect, both obvious and stupefying. The stumbling block that really sticks with me, however, was one of the first to arise: there was initially opposition-- certainly from musicians but also from patrons-- to recorded music being played in public places. The thought, presumably, was that if a crowd and venue were sufficient to support music, it should be live music. Matthew Herbert's One Club is composed from sounds recorded during one night at the Robert Johnson nightclub in Frankfurt; it is a self-professed attempt by Herbert to document the vibrancy and chaos of an ad-hoc community brought together by recorded sound. It is sort of a will-the-circle-be-unbroken?-artifact for DJ culture, if you enjoy thinking conceptually (Herbert does).Nothing with Herbert is merely an artifact; everything is a statement. One Club aims to combat what Herbert sees as the growing corporatism in club culture. He will combat this corporatism with high art, natch, but One Club is actually one of Herbert's least overbearingly wacky ideas this decade. (It is also the second volume of this year's "One" trilogy. One Pig-- volume three, scheduled for later this year-- attempts to document the life cycle of a swine.) Herbert functionally stopped making club music several years ago, so One Club represents something of a return to his roots, though it has little in common with the jazz-inflected microhouse he helped pioneer in the late 1990s. The points Herbert seems to be making-- that clubs are foggy, wonderful, frightening social habitats-- are elementary enough, but the way he makes them is natural. There is chatter, haze, long stretches of aggressive percussion. More than once a crowd starts chanting. I think of my bleeding-together club experiences: DJ call and response sessions ("Marcus Bujak"), bathroom breaks ("Alex Duwe"), stumbles to the bar ("Jalal Malekidoost"), and unmalicious elbows in my side while dancing ("Oliver Bauer"). In what is either a move of astoundingly precise conceptual execution or, well, compositional failure, One Club also embodies the ills of clubgoing: It is loud and too long and leaves you fatigued....full text |
| Musicomh |
| One Club is the second part of a projected trilogy for 2010 from Matthew Herbert, comfortably one of the UK's most inventive, honest and imaginative musicians. It could hardly be more different from its immediate predecessor, One One, on which Herbert used his own rather shaky vocals for the first time, emphasising personal and subjective concerns over the committed political and social ideals that have tended to categorise his music. Here, Herbert returns to his more conceptual approach to composition and production. He evidently still adheres to the principles of his PCCOM manifesto, through which music should be created using only originally sourced sounds (something akin to a musical version of Lars Von Trier's Dogme regulations). One Club fulfils this brief by capturing the nightclub experience using sounds created and recorded in the Robert Johnson nightclub in Frankfurt over a single night. Herbert apparently installed microphones all over the club, including in the DJ booth, the bar and even the toilets....full text |
| Kultureflash |
| When Matthew Herbert was given the opening night slot at Sonar in 2003 to premiere his fledgling Matthew Herbert Big Band project, he was arguably the most respected electronic music producer around. The success of the project seemed to signal the man could do no wrong. While such triumph couldn't and didn't last, Herbert is still producing some of the most original music in a genre which seems increasingly bereft of originality. This year alone he is releasing three albums, with One Club the second instalment of his One trilogy. Conceptual as ever, One Club is the result of Herbert recording clubbers at Frankfurt's techno-playing Robert Johnson club over the course of a night. A significant departure in sound from pretty much anything he has ever released before, One Club at times sounds more like Atari Teenage Riot than Bodily Functions. Having heard the album and the performance at Field Day it is safe to say the music works considerably better in a live setting where Herbert's improvisations lend a playful edge to proceedings....full text |
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