Ultimate Care II

At once atmospheric, industrial and experimental, Ultimate Care II is kind of like Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music had the old geezer from Freeport, N.Y. crafted it out of love instead of vitriol.

This is all standard Matmos; nothing here upsets their musical applecart. But the washing machine conceit gives their sample trickery a dramatic edge. It sometimes feels like we're descending deep into the innards of the machine.

Equally meticulous and mischievous, this is some of Matmos' most engaging work, especially for fans who are as fascinated by their process as their results.

The fact that Ultimate Care II is also, in its flexible extremes of danceability and post GRM meditation, one of the most purely enjoyable albums I've heard recently. [Feb 2016, p.55]

The results are often fascinating. Matmos clearly revel in exploring and manipulating sound, however unlikely the source, and there’s a variety here.

This is Matmos doing what they do best: taking a strange idea for a wild digital ride until it turns into something completely magical.

The absence of track titles sometimes forces the listener to reach further into the album's alien sounds, but as Ultimate Care II hits the five-minute mark the novelty wears off and absorption into the composition's overall mood takes place, as Matmos do a terrific job of blending the album's noises (which ranges from water sloshing to lids slamming to knobs grinding) into a captivating whole.

While the cynical may snigger behind their hands at this degree of conceptualisation, it makes for a suprisingly tight, focused release.

Ultimate Care II is reliably dream-like, the sort of album you never quite hear in the same way twice; passages jut out or fly under the radar.

Ultimate Care II is a daydream of domesticity, a chore ignored. Call it the revolutions of everyday life.

Ultimate Care II is still an engaging listen. Curiosity alone should be able to carry you through the first half of the track. It’s only towards the end when some honest-to-goodness notes are conjured out of the mix, announcing the Whirlpool as yet another avenue for ambient music.