HERBERT

The pioneering electronic musician Matthew Herbert releases “The Shakes”, his first new dance record for nine years, on 1st June via Caroline International on CD, Vinyl, Download and to stream. Herbert & Caroline International are providing a unique route to the new music for his fans by making one track and short accompanying film available on streaming and video platforms each week leading up to album release. Directed by Matthew himself, working with fine artist and cinematographer Margaret Salmon, each shot is a made up of a single shot, filmed in one take and set up as a moving equivalent of a still life. “Middle” will be the first track made available on Monday 16th March. By the 1st June, all album tracks will be available to stream and or watch with a bespoke selection of these also available as Instant Grat tracks on iTunes. The physical CD and Vinyl formats will include bonus remixes and a download card.

Emma Greengrass, UK Head of Caroline International comments “Between now and the release date of “The Shakes” we will be curating an ever growing playlist that combined with the timely reveal of visual elements creates a calling card for this career defining album. Of course running in tandem will be a more traditional radio, TV & PR strategy but Matthew’s musical career is defined by experiment so we wanted to complement that with a more engaging launch strategy.”

“The Shakes” is Matthew Herbert’s first album under the name HERBERT since 2006’s dark orchestral disco fantasy ‘Scale’ (K7!). The album deals with intensely personal issues such as raising young children against a backdrop of an increasingly unstable world and, amongst other things, utilizes the sound of used bullets and shells from eBay as part of its soundscape. Herbert himself suggests that the record can be seen as a treatise on how “music helps to motivate, provide respite and divert us from the challenges of the everyday” and that it is “electronic music for the soul.”

In many ways, The Shakes is a sequel to Herbert’s much-lauded Bodily Functions album - a record that regularly features in Best Of The ‘90s’ album lists – and is the latest in a series of albums that stretches back nearly twenty years to his minimalist house classic 100lbs. It follows a vinyl-heavy trio of underground releases last year (part 6,7,8) and is Herbert’s attempt to “seduce the listener back to the dance-floor”. Herbert comments: “When I started writing music, I did it because I could, because there was a chance to, because I liked it. As I get older these reasons become less compelling. At a time when inequality is rising to unprecedented extremes and when the system we have created is designed to destroy rather than nurture, music’s propensity to noodle inconclusively can seem unhelpful at best. Who needs diversion when action is required? However, music can’t only and always be a call to arms, it can also tenderize and engulf when comfort is needed. This album then is an attempt to find a middle ground between those two positions.”