My Weekend of Being Blown Away By Matthew Herbert

This past Saturday, I went and saw Matthew Herbert (one of my musical heroes) at the Mezzanine in what had to be one of the best live shows I've ever seen.

I first got interested in Herbert in 2003, when he was leaving house music behind and leading the Matthew Herbert Big Band. That record - Goodbye Swingtime - featured big band music written by Herbert then remixed and littered with a variety of samples (a computer printer, scissors clipping a newspaper) for a largely political purpose. Through that record and level others, Herbert has been at the forefront of a laptop movement happening in electronic music. He finds his samples not on old soul records, but in basic household sounds. Furthermore, there is a serious theoretical discourse that informs all of the music he makes. What makes the live show so special is how it differs so much from his laptop/sample-heavy counterparts. Unlike the Go Team using a live band to completely recreate the album or Herbert's openers, Spacetime Continum - who let the laptop do all the talking, Herbert finds a healthy balance between the two. He's at the front - wearing a bathrobe - leading with his laptop and keyboard of samples. Alongside him though, he's got bass, drums, piano and horns alongside a fantastic singer who, always clad in a bathrobe, does not stray far from his post but commands the stage with a Vegas hotel-like presence.

The set was made up virtually entirely of songs from Herbert's latest, Scale, a heavily political record smoothed out with cool funk, jazz and slight big band leanings. It's probably his most pop-friendly record to date, heavily focused on song craft. The show did not stray heavily into confusing jam sessions, instead recreating each song as a powerful collaboration. Herbert even did a little bit of live sampling, letting the crowd interact during the encore. It's worth mentioning that Herbert is a classically trained pianist - thus possessing a unique ability to play non-musical samples as if they were musical notes. The major fear I have about the laptop movement is how the life performance can so often create a real distance from the crowd. Though Herbert addressed the audience just three times, the whole show felt very interactive, as if we were part of the movement. It didn't hurt that Herbert's new songs are absolutely fantastic, especially Harmonise which includes the line, "You are the world, I am your people," a rather fitting explanation of the relationship between artist and audience at a Herbert show.

You can read a rather insightful interview with Herbert at Pitchfork.