Radio Boy | The Mechanics of Destruction
Accidental | CD
Seeing Matthew Herbert (aka Radio Boy, Dr Rockit, etc.) play live contributes significantly to the enjoyment of this CD, so it's fitting that 'The Mechanics...' was given out to the first fortunate 1,000 audience members at his excellent Mutek 2002 performance (which also featured superb sets by Hakan Libdo, Akufen and Copacabannark).
With the audience firmly in the palm of his hand, Herbert coaxed infectious rhythms from the profit-soaked by-products of relentless globalisation: McDonalds Big Macs, Coca Cola, Marlboro and Bacardi... An endless stream of products; an endless stream of sound. Source material discarded once its sonic possibilities had been sucked dry, the audience watched mesmerised as Herbert wrenched rhythms from the various products on hand. "Creating something good out of shit," as he neatly put it.
Listened to on CD, minus the spectacle, it's hard to resist the beats as Herbert relentlessly inverts various artefacts of consumer society and creates a seductively confrontational audio laced with polemic. 'McDonalds' opens with the effervescent sounds of a Japanese street before succumbing to a pulverised polypropylene rhythm that pounds relentlessly for six seductive minutes. Likewise 'Gap', building slowly over squelching balloon like samples spiralling into a crescendo of pure house music. The perfect beat, like consumerism, it's highly addictive.
Globalisation never sounded this good.
[CM]
