Rounding out the batch of Matière Mémoire Éditions’ first five releases in the MMXX series comes Daniel Menche, a musician and composer based in Portland, Oregon, who has been actively on the scene since the late '80s.
His catalog of recordings - solo and in collaboration with notable figures like William Fowler Collins, Alan Courtis, and Kevin Drumm, among others - is sprawling, covering a vast range of discrete fields, from electro-acoustic, noise, and dark ambient musics, to field recording and the explicitly avant-garde and experimental, deploying an equally wide range of sound sources, particularly manipulated and prepared acoustic and electronic instruments, as well as field recordings.
A beautiful pairing with Reinier Van Houdt’s electroacoustic contribution to the series, Menche’s work, simply titled 4424, stitches a droning landscape, punctuated by rhythmically hammered strings, of stunning density from an unknown number of generative sources. A dark reconceptualisation of minimalism, resonant long tones and bristling harmonics and distances collide in the open field, slowly gathering like a storm.
Arguably the most dynamic and seductive of the MMXX series’ first batch, 4424 is a work that continues to unfold over successive listening.
Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series. In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 great artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout this year, each quarter will see the release of 5 new vinyls, available individually or as a bundle. Each record is limited at 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each contained in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, and each coming with a print of the artist artwork.
