Matmos' Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt turn the concept of source material into an invitation to play around. When birdcage vibrations or a surgeon's clean cuts are chopped and pulsed through Matmos' digital blender, it sounds like technology working in the real world. On their seventh album of Technicolor electro, Daniel and Schmidt flip over the looking glass. Things used to tick and crumble; here they're coated in warm, rainbow-hued textures that range from old-school, 8-bit video-game blips to percolating Clockwork Orange-like whimsy. Supreme Balloon's title cut is a righteous homage to space music, chugging and gurgling like an ancient but pristine intergalactic tugboat. Throughout, Matmos looks at the world from the machine — no longer the other way around. There's not a microphone in sight, and it sounds simply stellar.
