MATTHEW HERBERT Vinyl & CDs

Review: Matthew Herbert's score for Starve Acre is an atmospheric blend of tension and subtlety, perfectly complementing the film's eerie rural setting. Known for his innovative soundtracks - as well as his innovative house productions - Herbert delivers a composition that merges traditional orchestral elements with unsettling electronic soundscapes. The result is a haunting mix that mirrors the film's themes of grief, folklore, and the supernatural. Throughout the score, Herbert balances delicate, pastoral melodies with darker, more ominous tones. Tracks swell gently before giving way to deeper, more unsettling layers, capturing the oppressive sense of dread that permeates the film. The inclusion of two renditions of 'Let Me In' i one performed by actor Matt Smith and another by folk-electronic duo Crewdson & Cevanne i adds a folkish, melancholic edge to the soundtrack. Each version offers a distinct interpretation, with Smith's stripped-down approach contrasting with Crewdson & Cevanne's more textured take. Overall, Herbert's minimalist yet powerful score elevates the haunting atmosphere of Starve Acre, turning it into an unsettling sonic experience. Fans of atmospheric soundtracks and experimental compositions will appreciate the subtle craftsmanship on display.

Review: We all know that Matthew Herbert is a far out sonic experimenter who will look to make music with and from anything. But this project might be his most outlandish and extraordinary to date. It starts with him looking for the largest possible animal skeleton to explore though music. He settled on a full size horse and from that made flutes from its thigh bones and bows from ribs and hair. Gut strings stretched over the pelvis feature in the mid-section and even more bizarre than that is the fact he travelled to ancient cave paintings of horses in Northern Spain to record reverb at their door. Brilliantly bonkers as ever.

Review: A collaboration rooted in intuition, Clay finds UK experimentalist Matthew Herbert and South London drummer-vocalist Momoko Gill stepping into strange, emotionally vivid territory, stretching the song form into new shapes on their first full-length collaborationi a record that's as textural as it is emotional. Built from improvised sessions and strange source materialiJapanese kotos, basketballs, domestic clatterithe music feels both homespun and futuristic. 'Calm Water' opens with uncanny stillness before 'Need To Run' and 'Mowing' introduce a kind of fractured longing. Gill's voice dances above the dust-clouded rhythms of 'More And More' and 'Heart', sometimes like a jazz phrasing exercise, other times like something closer to prayer. Even the more dancefloor-leaning momentsi'Babystar', 'Show Me', 'Someone Like You'iremain intimate, the spaces between notes stretching wide. On 'Animals' and 'Circle Shore', they seem to hover in slow-motion, guided by instinct and restraint. It's a record with no interest in genre boundaries, powered by instinct and a quiet refusal to settle.

Review: London experimental and deep/minimal house innovator-continuator Matthew Herbert teams up with drummer and vocalist Momoko Gill - a self-taught musician with ties to Coby Sey and Tirzah - for a rawly real new record, Clay, as ever drawing on not just the textures of daily life, but also unconventional sound sources. As is typical for Herbert and his discog-wide interest in domestic sounds, we hear everyday foleys and realist samples utilised with efficiency, from kotos to basketballs, as Gill's voice carries across the eleven tracks a disarming clarity, from the layered arrangements of 'Mowing' to the up-close harmonies of 'Heart'. The pair previously collaborated on 2024's 'Fallen' and Gill's remix of Herbert's 'The Horse Is Here', but this is their first full-length release as a duo.