Sunday July 27, 2008 (9pm)
There's intelligent dance music, and then there's intelligent dance music. Since 1998's quasi-objects LP, which exclusively relied on found sounds, Matmos have crafted entire albums based on literary and historical concepts — 2006's excellent The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, for example, is a collection of abstract "sound portraits" of luminaries such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, William S. Burroughs, and Patricia Highsmith. Their recent Supreme Balloon is a more joyous, less cerebral affair, replete with retro-future synths, and cheeky bloops and bleeps; at tonight's show, expect an abundance of digital noise, quirky melodies, and the same playful charm that made the group's intellectual bravado bearable in the first place.
– Nick Earhart