Matmos and Yara Asmar concerts
21.06.2024
To celebrate the Fête de la musique, we were delighted to welcome electronic music duo Matmos and artist Yara Asmar, resident at La Becque as part of a partnership with Pro Helvetia.
Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Matmos is known for its use of unusual samples. Since the 1990s, the duo, consisting of M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, has been using all sorts of objects, sources, and sound materials, from the sound of pages of the Bible turning over to that of a police riot shield, to create conceptual and playful electronic productions that straddle the line between musique concrète, electroacoustics and dance music.
After using nothing but sounds generated by a washing machine on Ultimate Care II in 2016, recording Plastic Anniversary in a plastic recycling plant in Montana (in 2019) or collaborating with 99 musicians on The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (2020), the American duo have released their latest opus Return to Archive (2023), in which they seize and transform the vast archives of the Smithsonian Folkways Records label, which features recordings from all over the world: from folk and protest music to indigenous music and jazz, as well as the sounds of dolphins, beetles and telephones.
Yara Asmar is a Lebanese musician, video artist, and puppeteer who lives and works in Beirut. In her practice, she recomposes and diverts childish symbols to create universes that are both dark and poetic – the antithesis of the naïve positivism that encompasses the world of early childhood. Since 2019, she has been creating puppets, which often take the form of human faces, to incorporate into short films that explore the distressing and imprisoning impact of time, anxiety, and death.
Asmar has recently begun to perform live, generating highly sensitive experimental compositions through the use of toys, such as a deconstructed children’s piano, a vintage accordion or a metallophone.
Matmos’ performance was organized in partnership with the Konnekt association.
Concerts Matmos and Yara Asmar, 2024, La Becque, photo Aurélien Haslebacher