This is the premiere of the eye-popping new video for Matthew Herbert‘s new single ‘Leipzig’, telling the story of “a young man’s hedonistic adventures in club land”.

As you probably all know by now, the irrepressible Herbert is currently engaged in a controversial project involving sounds and other materials sourced from a pig. The resulting album, One Pig, is due to be released later this year.

Singular though its conception might seem, One Pig is in fact the third part in a trilogy of thematically allied full-lengths that Herbert will be issuing in the months ahead. The first part of the trilogy, entitled One One, is our present concern, and it will be released in April. It’s from this record that ‘Leipzig’ is taken.

Over the years Herbert has used many unlikely tools in his quest to make musically and politically resonant works – household appliances, foodstuffs, condoms and the like – but he has never used his own singing voice. Until now. His hushed, surprisingly deft vocals are central to the new LP, which he describes as his most “honest” musical production since he first performed live as Wishmountain in 1995, accompanied only by a pepper pot. One One is entirely self-written, self-performed and self-produced.

“Singing for the record was surprisingly difficult,” he says. “There was no one there to tell me if I was terrible, and if I was terrible I had to fix it myself. I couldn’t hide behind nifty production tricks.

“At times it took dressing in a black tuxedo and half a bottle of wine to get over the nerves. I didn’t know how to play many of the instruments when I started…”

The album was recorded at Herbert’s studio in Whitstable, Kent, and it apparently “chronicles a single day in the life”. The intention was to make a more personal record after the epic Matthew Herbert Big Band album There’s You And There’s Me, which addressed ideas of community and entailed 2,000 samples produced by more than 350 people.

The next part of the One trilogy will be One Club, a work comprised entirely of samples recorded on one night at the Robert-Johnson techno club in Frankfurt, including sounds of kissing, dancing, laughter and mobile phone rings.

We were also pleased to learn today that Herbert has been commissioned by venerable classical imprint Deutsche Grammophon to produce the next in their series of Re:Composed series. He follows in the footsteps of Carl Craig & Moritz Von Oswald and Jim Tenor, and has chosen – as he puts it, “rather foolishly” – to take on Mahler’s 10th symphony.

You can watch the video for ‘Leipzig’ below:

Latest

Latest



		
	
Share Tweet