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Martin Schmidt

American experimental electronic musician, producer, and composer. Born: 1964. M.C. Schmidt is best known as one half of an acclaimed duo [a=Matmos]. He also used to be an assistant manager of the New Genres Department at [l=San Francisco Art Institute], where Martin taught people to edit video and use necessary lighting and sound equipment, and also maintained a small computer lab. In the eighties, Schmidt played in a legendary occult-avantgarde band [a=Iao Core]. He also collaborated with [a=Kris Force] (of [a=Amber Asylum]), and played synthesizer on a few [a=Frozeninamber] tracks. Martin met [a=Drew Daniel] around 1989 at Uranus, a gay bar in San Francisco, where Drew worked as a go go dancer. Prior to that, Daniel saw Schmidt playing with IAO Core at [l=Ordo Templi Orientis]'s event at [l=924 Gilman Street]. Eventually the two started dating and formed the [a=Matmos] band together – named after a 'seething lake of evil slime' beneath the Sogo city in the film "Barbarella (1968). After making music together privately for a few years, in 1997 Drew and Martin established [l=Vague Terrain] label and self-released their debut album "[r=63794]" (1997). Since then, the duo have released over ten albums, as well as numerous collaborations and EPs on many labels, including [l=Matador], [l=Thrill Jockey], [l=Deluxe (6)], [l=Tigerbeat6], [l=Important Records (2)], [l=FatCat Records], [l=Locust Music], and other independent labels. As half of Matmos, Schmidt has worked with [a=Terry Riley], [a=Kronos Quartet], [a=Peter Rehberg], [l=INA-GRM], [a=Rrose], [a=Marshall Allen], [a=Horse Lords], [a=Vicki Bennett] ([a=People Like Us]), [a=Keith Fullerton Whitman], [a=Antony Hegarty], [a=William Basinski], and many others. For many years, Matmos had been collaborating with Icelandic artist [a=Björk], producing several remixes, and later contributed to a few of her albums. Schmidt and Daniel accompanied Björk on Vespertine World Tour (2001) and Greatest Hits Tour (2003) as part of her live band. In 1997-1998, Daniel Schmidt recorded several glitch albums with [a=Miguel Depedro] ([a=Kid606]) as [a=Disc]. In 2009, Schmidt hosted a series of improvisational sessions with [a=Lisle Ellis], a veteran jazz basist who have played with [a=Cecil Taylor], [a=Fred Frith], [a=John Zorn], and the likes, and [a=Jason Willett] ([a=1/2 Japanese]) at his home in Baltimore. A newly formed [a=Instant Coffee!] trio saw Ellis exploring the electroacoustic combination of traditional jazz techniques with real-time computer processing, Schmidt playing the usual variety of bizarre percussion, non-musical objects and synthesizers, and Jason Willett jamming on contact mic'ed rubber band, Sidrassi Organ, and custom-made electronic instruments. The sessions were documented on "[r=3098581] (2010), a limited edition album on [l=Alga Marghen]'s [l=Planam] sublabel. Schmidt released his first solo album "[m=839776]" (2015), recorded on prepared piano, Chinese flute, Roland SH-101, Roland V-Synth, T.C. Helicon VoiceLive II, and other machines. It features [a=Wobbly] and [a=Thomas Dimuzio] on miscellaneous synthesizers and electronics, Batu Malablab presents an original gamelan-inspired experimental take on Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" and other Western cosmopolitan renditions of non-western world music. He also made a soundtrack to a Jeffrey Rettberg's 27-min film, "Devotion" (2017).