Matt Shoemaker
Isolated Agent/Stranding Behavior
Elevator Bath - picture disc LP

Available through the Helen Scarsdale Agency: $18.00

A few copies of this limited picture disc by Matt Shoemaker have made it into our small catalogue. This is as good as any anything that we've published by Mr. Shoemaker here at The Agency, and like all of his work, it is comes very highly recommended. This tends towards the bleaker side of Shoemaker's lysergic, vertiginous drone collage strategies.

And for another opinion:

    "Matt Shoemaker’s Isolated Agent/Stranding Behavior delivers two rich compositions of skillfully textured and varied sound full of wavering drone, subtly twittering electronics, and brittle noises. When drone is done well, you can tell it comes from the heart as much as it does from the head. There’s something quite satisfying about listening to music that has been digitally sculpted from a sonic palette of environmental recordings, electronic sounds and real instruments. The music inhabits a similar space as Musique Concrète and Elektronische Musik— slow, sullen landscapes of booming percussion and electronic and acoustic drones and details. The realm of electroacoustic composition can be a trap cluttered with all too familiar sonic detritus, but Shoemaker is surefooted enough to arrive at destinations few of his contemporaries have managed to reach. The treatments, source materials and compositions point equally to genuine experimentation and a studied understanding of his compositional approach. Elements are brought into and out of hearing range with a precise execution, heightening the act of listening and resulting in a truly rich, cliché-free listening experience. As familiar as some of the source sounds may be, their recording and treatment keeps them at a conscious distance. It’s like remembering a sound many years later. Careful listening reveals a depth that betrays the careful thought that has gone into the placement of sounds here. Quite simply, this is gorgeous stuff." -- Andy Heater / Foxy Digitalis