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Nov 03, 2023 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

In her studies of sound illusions, British psychologist Diana Deutsch observed a phenomenon in which the brain will eventually perceive music in a fragment of looped language. Across extended repetition, the mind tends to find pitch and patterns even where none were ever intended. On Return to Archive, Matmos save your subconscious the heavy lifting, as the duo raid the Smithsonian’s library of mid-Century records to craft an album completely from non-musical sources, ranging from medical and scientific audio to zoological field recordings.

The results are compelling, though a few cuts are more sound collage than song. Some tracks manage to obscure their cut-and-paste nature, sounding like electronic compositions made from scratch until you actively listen for the individual parts. Others blend musicality with the weirdness of these found objects, and yield the best results: the haunting closer “Going to Sleep,” or the strange yet beguiling “Lend Me Your Ears,” which are like a Joseph Cornell assemblage in acoustic form. Interesting but uneven, there are components of Return to Archive that will be too harsh for some ears. Funny enough, the album’s standout track, “Music or Noise?,” ultimately asks the audience to judge for themselves. The answer to that question will vary from listener to listener. (www.vague-terrain.com)

Author rating: 6/10