Pitchfork

A sound is never just a sound to Matthew Herbert, and a piece of music is never just a piece of music-- it's an act of protest. Whether working under his own name or under a series of aliases (Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy, Wishmountain, etc.), the British producer treats both process and product as political entities. He has made albums about physicality using the sounds of the human body (2001's Bodily Functions), mass consumption using food and food processing materials (last year's Plat du Jour), and the evils of corporate globalization using McDonalds wrappers, Gap boxer shorts, Marlboro cigarettes, and a Starship Troopers video cassette, among other source materials.

Every Herbert album is a concept album to a certain extent, and his latest, Scale, due out May 30 on !K7, is no different. Using "the idea of distance in our lives" as its platform, Scale is reminiscent of the poppier, more straightforwardly song-oriented sound Herbert cultivated on Bodily Functions and 1998's Around the House, as well as his work on Róisín Murphy's 2005 album Ruby Blue.

"My goals, as always these days, are to bring down Tony Blair [and] the American empire, a withdrawal of troops in Iraq and bring[ing] about an end to our reliance on oil," Herbert told Pitchfork in an email interview. "I will, as usual fail. This time, instead of trying to do it with a process of intense political organisation of sounds, I have chosen to shroud these ambitions in song."

He continued, "On Plat du Jour, my last record, I had few harmonic tools with which to write the melodies and not one traditional instrument. For Scale therefore I wanted to languish in the freedoms of an orchestra, the satisfying fall of a melody played by a musician on an instrument developed over hundreds of years. It is a celebration of all the luxuries I have been afforded by the age of cheap oil and a critique of all the violence that allowed those privileges."

Write your congressman to the tune of this tracklist:

01 Something Isn't Right
02 The Movers and Shakers
03 Moving Like a Train
04 Harmonise
05 We're in Love
06 Birds of a Feather
07 Those Feelings
08 Down
09 Movie Star
10 Just Once
11 Wrong

Scale features vocal contributions from Herbert's longtime collaborator Dani Siciliano, newcomer Neil Thomas, and Dave Okumu of Jade Fox, who also provides some guitar work. Herbert himself sings (or "croaks", as he put it) on the closing track, "Wrong".

However, the album's most intriguing guest spots come from an unusual source: Herbert fans. Late last year, Herbert and !K7 set up "Herbert's Hotline", open to anyone and everyone, with the intent of collecting sounds to use on the album. "We ended up with 177 messages, including a threat of violence, random mumblings, self-promoters, and a lot of slightly disturbing noises," Herbert said. "I used all of them on the track 'Just Once'. Hopefully with careful listening, people can recognize their own contribution."

As for the other sources of Scale's seductive cacophony, Herbert credits "meteorites, coffins, golf swings, cars, tornado bombers, petrol pumps, breakfast cereal, etc. etc." If anybody else said that, we'd think they were joking, but this is Matthew Herbert we're talking about.

Scale's first single, the double A side "Movers and Shakers"/"Harmonize", will be released in May, with "Moving Like a Train" due out in July. Herbert and Siciliano recorded Siciliano's sophomore solo album, Slappers, at the same time as Scale. It's scheduled for release in August. ("It rocks," said Herbert.)

In the meantime, the pair are preparing for a tour, which should kick off in April. Herbert is also keeping busy with "choral music for a contemporary dance piece, a film score, remixes as usual, grow[ing] vegetables, and hav[ing] a haircut." Good to know.

"