Herbert: The Shakes | Album Review

An experimental bent has made for some grandstanding, innovative work from Matthew Herbert over the years, with such unconventional sound sources as pigs, bombs and newspapers all grist to his mill.

There’s some similar fare, such as sounds divined from used bullets and shells, on the producer’s first dancefloor-facing album as Herbert in nearly a decade, but the real nuts and bolts are in the grooves.

Though Herbert is now a director of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, an opera composer, theatre director and film scorer, he can still neatly finesse sturdy rhythms and minimal, sleek house.

There's a political shimmy to the album with a focus on action and activism, but the raw pulses and energetic sweep of tracks like Strong, Bed and the horn-tastic Middle call for a different, less-cerebral kind of movement.

[ matthewherbert.com ]