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LP+CD
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BPC 266LP
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LP version with CD of the album. Matthew Patterson Curry aka Safety Scissors, has developed from interesting musical roots: Matt took his first, highly adventurous steps into the music world in the experimental San Francisco electronic scene. His peers include illustrious names such as Kid 606, Kit Clayton, the avant-garde sound tinkerers Matmos, and the programming enthusiasts around the legendary music production software MAX/MSP. A good decade later, Matt can look back on two successful albums, festival appearances worldwide and numerous remixes, including those for Matmos, Grizzly Bear, and Architecture. In particular, Safety Scissors' second album Tainted Lunch, produced by Stefan Betke aka Pole, is regarded as a prime example of how experimental electronics and classic pop can be successfully combined. The 12 songs range from intricate indie-electronica, enriched with a playful chaos of noises, to poppy, minimal house tracks with catchy hooks, to sensitive singer-songwriter sketches and ethereal atmospheres. The beats -- whether in house-mode or using live drums for a more rocky feel -- are never merely functional: they always feel entirely devoted to the song. In a Manner of Sleeping is an album that can't be pigeon-holed -- any genre corset is burst open by its eclecticism and sudden surprises.
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CD
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BPC 266CD
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Matthew Patterson Curry aka Safety Scissors, has developed from interesting musical roots: Matt took his first, highly adventurous steps into the music world in the experimental San Francisco electronic scene. His peers include illustrious names such as Kid 606, Kit Clayton, the avant-garde sound tinkerers Matmos, and the programming enthusiasts around the legendary music production software MAX/MSP. A good decade later, Matt can look back on two successful albums, festival appearances worldwide and numerous remixes, including those for Matmos, Grizzly Bear, and Architecture. In particular, Safety Scissors' second album Tainted Lunch, produced by Stefan Betke aka Pole, is regarded as a prime example of how experimental electronics and classic pop can be successfully combined. The 12 songs range from intricate indie-electronica, enriched with a playful chaos of noises, to poppy, minimal house tracks with catchy hooks, to sensitive singer-songwriter sketches and ethereal atmospheres. The beats -- whether in house-mode or using live drums for a more rocky feel -- are never merely functional: they always feel entirely devoted to the song. In a Manner of Sleeping is an album that can't be pigeon-holed -- any genre corset is burst open by its eclecticism and sudden surprises.
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2LP
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SCAPE 030LP
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CD
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SCAPE 030CD
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Tainted Lunch, the second full-length release from Matthew Patterson Curry (aka Safety Scissors), as mixed in Berlin by Vladislav Delay, shows a healthy but strange diet of influences and thoughts. With widescreen electronic pop music wearing its heart on its sleeve, the Berlin/San Francisco-based artist proves that clever songwriting, frisky arrangements, and slanted dancefloor maneuvers will always trump formulaic thumping and shrill, chilly attitudes. From amnesia to French cooking to transatlantic affairs of the heart, the lyrics sidestep cliché in favor of an awkward vulnerability, deliberate off-rhymes and quotidian details. Balancing smarts with slapstick humor, Curry sets a Rimbaud poem about trench warfare, but calls it "I Am The Cheese" and keeps an eyebrow cocked throughout. When his wavery, emotionally direct voice (think Chet Baker as a sozzled tech support worker) and wry lyrics are combined with brisk, brittle electronic production and twangy guitars, the result adds up to classic synthetic pop music of the kind that makes everybody reach for their New Order and Magnetic Fields albums. But there's a substantial freakiness/funkiness to Curry's production too which takes '80s synth funk stabs, saxophone, a rubber bass guitar, electric piano, kazoo and banjo in stride, and sets beats and basslines spinning in odd directions, as frazzled quakes and dubbed out bleeps fizz through the mix. The cast of supporting characters and guest artists reveal a considerable pedigree: guest singers and co-songwriters include Erelend Øye of Kings of Convenience, Kevin Blechdom, Françoise Cactus of Stereo Total, and Kim West of Crack W.A.R., and there are additional production flourishes from Apendics Shuffle, and Wobbly. On these ten songs the elegant techno pop classicism of Germany is tainted by the prankster freak flag spirit of California, and the results are yummy.
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7"
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SCAPE 031EP
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"Limited 7" pre-taster for the the upcoming long-play album Tainted Lunch. This 7" features an acoustic version of 'Sunlight On The Other Side' sung by Erlend Øye and a new version of 'Breastbone.' This will be a collector's item pretty soon."
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12"
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CYTRAX 16
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2000 release. "Safety Scissors is Matt Curry, a recent Carpark signing previously employed by the same vanguard west coast audio software developing firm that houses a certain Josh Kit Clayton, since relocated to Berlin. This EP starts out with some nice almost-shuffle feel rhythms and the kind of dubby backdrop you'd be likely to find on records by other Berlin residents. The second track fares better; computer crackle bits over a sly techno framework. On the B-side, a somewhat epochal chord voice set chimes underneath a positively Detroitian rhythm set, while the adjoining track works its single record pop with some dubby jabs and stabs. All in all a perfectly functional outing with a little science thrown in for measure." -- Hrvatski.
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