Irr. App. (Ext.) is the project of San Francisco-based electronic/digital
composer Matt Waldron (1969).
An Uncertain Animal Ruptured - Tissue Expanding In Conversation (E.i.E., 1997)
and
Their Little Bones Becoming Sharp Find Repose but Fail to Avoid Worrying a Breach in the Ghostly Skin the Which Separates That Above from That Below (this being The Last and Final Seal) and Whereupon All Light Evacuated the Furnace - Several Consequences Ensue (E.i.E., 1999)
applied musique concrete to the anarchic, provocative aesthetic of surrealism.
The two lengthy suites of Ozeanische Gefuhle (Errata in Excelsis, 2001 - Helen Scarsdale Agency, 2004), recorded in 2001 and starting a trilogy dedicated to Wilhelm Reich, perfected his fusion of field recordings, event music and electronic soundsculpting.
Ozeanische Gefhle (42:01) dilutes the sounds of rain and thunder and
then architects a droning crescendo that seems bound for apocalyptic intensity
but instead ends some 20 minutes later sounding like a sitar being tuned for
a raga. From there on it's all downhill, with the sound becoming more and
more cryptic, less and less audible, and the sounds of nature reemerging
at the rhythm of a tinkling bell and in the wake with of a much more humane
accordion-like drone.
The Demiurge's Presumption (15:48) begins as a duet between
dissonant guitar and rattling percussion against the backdrop of electronic
drones, but it mutates into a loud monolithic organ drone littered with
glitchy noises.
Dust Pincher Appliances (Crouton, 2003) and
Perekluchenie (Beta-Lactam Ring Records, 2005)
indulged in parades of demented harmonies.
In 2005 Waldron joined
Nurse With Wound
(namely Steven Stapleton, Andrew Liles and Colin Potter).
Cosmic Superimposition (Errata In Excelsis, 2007)
contains a 45-minute piece inspired by Wilhelm Reich's 1951 namesake book and
obtained by creatively revisiting the material of
Ozeanische Gefuhle.
Matthew Waldron proves to be one of the most
gifted sound collagists of his generation.
Aspiring To An Empty Gesture Vol 1 (Errata In Excelsis, 2008) documents live performances.
The 22-minute While Unconscious In Compost I Was Temporarily A Motile Vesicular Cluster appeared as one side of a split album.
The EP Blue Tongues Ignite/To Render the Chalaza (2008), released only ten years later, contains a 20-minute collage that is no less powerful than Ozeanische Gefuhle, just a little less "optimized".
The 18-minute Tellurium-Ergot-Contingency, a manic blender of
percussion and vocals, appeared on the three cassette box-set New Directions in Experimental Music (Nihilist, 2010).
Kreiselwelle (Helen Scarsdale Agency, 2009)
concludes the Wilhelm Reich trilogy.
A new baroque monolith of controlled noise, Kreiselwelle (46 minutes),
blends musique concrete, gusty drones, oceanic tides, drilling noise,
bubbling electronics, and so forth, an endless sequence of metamorphoses
that created one of his most kinetic sound sculptures ever,
a merry-go-round of disorienting aural effects,
a feast for the trained ears.
The tragic tones of the last ten minutes leave the impression that
Waldron has been giving the speech of his life. At the end he simply walks out
of the door.
Josephine and Elsewhere (Errata in Excelsis, 2010) is a limited-edition
live disc.
In 2011 Waldron opened his own recording studio in Oregon where he was able to organize 25 years worth of audio archives.
The 16-minute piece Ustrojenstvozagyat (2011) was later re-released with the eleven-minute Advective Laminate, one of his most abrasive pieces and perhaps his best venture into industrial music.
The cassette Flux/Crayfish (2011) contains two 20-minute pieces.
Skeletal Coupla Remains (Gnarled Forest, 2011) documents a collaboration with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer.
The cassette The 11-Year Backwards Sleepwalk (2011) is an amateurish appendix to his two major albums.
The EP Celestial Laminate (2011) contains two shorter pieces.
The Other Side Is Blank (2011) is ostensibly a tribute to Organum.
The 20-minute piece of the
EP Neognath In Machina (Petit Mal, 2012) marked a return to
Waldron's more ambitious abstract art. It was collected with the other EP
Neognathæ Portentosus (2012) in the album
Neornithes Rex Imperator (2018).
Even better, the 40-minute Observation Affects the Outcome (Monochrome Vision, 2013) is one of his kaleidoscopic collages that more or less seamlessly roams a vast repertory of noises.
Unknown Invertebrate Drama (2013) is instead a minor work.
Waldron committed to a monthly release for the online gallery "Nine Day Antler Society" (NDAS), shared with Seattle-based At Jennie Richie, San Francisco-based Eriijk Ressler, Thomas Carnacki, Richard Faulhaber and others.
Tuberpendicular (2013) reworks some of those monthly releases.
Yma Dhym Mur Varthegyon appeared as one side of
Vertonen's and At Jennie Richie's cassette
Arpt Verjennepp Tonxtie (Readymades Tapes, 2013).
The two discs of
The Jennies Made Me Do It (2014 and 2019) collects split
releases with At Jennie Richie and others.
Waldron reworked various rarities into the short compositions of the album
I Made This For Someone Else But They Didn't Want It So I'm Giving It To You Instead (2014).
Dark Drippings (2016) was a mediocre collaboration with Nurse With Wound.
Waldron had toured around Europe with Nurse With Wound between 2005 and 2011. Back in Oregon, he manipulated recordings of their performances (up to 2014) and obtained the wildly dissonant "music" of A Darker Shade Of Fat (2017).
The 60-minute Future Reveries Of The Eoarchaean Biomass Volume One (2017)
signals a transition towards droning ambient music. It is however a rather
amateurish attempt.
A Transfigured System (2018) contains four "dispositions" named with long titles, notably the 16-minute A Thing Is Set In Motion Towards Something Else Imparting An Aspect Of Otherness To It So That It Is No Longer Identical With Itself that achieves an almost mass-like intensity via a crescendo of distorted drones.
In 2018 he also started releasing a monthly digital single by remastering the NDAS series and by dusting off leftovers. This would go on for several years.
The cute 40-minute Blau Erntearbeiter (2020) was made out of the sounds obtained from (quote) "one abject, inexpensive, poorly-intonated guitar".
Minor works of the period include:
the two ten-minute pieces of Are All Things Equivalent (2019),
the two colossal ones of Foraging For Daylight (2020),
the three of Vacuous Truths (2020),
the 30-minute Reticulate Shifting (2020),
HCA (2020), which manipulates famous fables by Hans Christian Andersen,
the 13-minute A Trivial Idea Magnified Across Vast Imaginary Distances (2020),
the 20-minute Gently Easing A Lifetime Of Apprehension Out Through A Bathroom Window And Into A Shrub (2021),
the 54-minute The Hairless Communique' {2021) for text, electronics and field recordings,
the 17-minute Xrnmrg (2022),
the 20-minute Accretions of the Phthegogamous Psithyriphore (2022).
Some 2021 compositions rank among his best collages:
the 40-minute An Imaginary Machine Dreams Of Becoming Meat (2021), a grating and ticking buzz that morphs into a didjeridoo-like drone and then into sophisticated impalpable drones over ghostly steps, where cosmic music meets gothic music;
the 30-minute Auspur (2021) of chaotic and eerie alien-sounding musique concrete;
the 33-minute Skran (2021), its clownish dada complement;
the 45-minute Exhausted Bee (2021), a more austere and colder take on the same premise of electronically manipulated field recordings.
Three companion compositions rank among his best ambient creations:
the 42-minute piece of Nocturnal Emissaries (2020) is gothic industrial music of high caliber, seamlessly transitioning from one style to another;
the 35-minute piece of Crepusculum (2022) is an ominous vortex of cosmic music for vibrating electronics and field recordings;
the 65-minute piece of Nocturnal Arc (2022) is an even more elegant ambient symphony of whirling dirty drones.
On the other hand,
the 45-minute Simulacre I (2022) is a confused hodge-podge of styles,
and the 46-minute Simulacre II (2022) is slightly more coherent but contains too much filler (the ending is a keeper though).
In the same year he also released:
Sojourn In Frogtown And Ancillary Events (2022),
Neither Here Nor There I (2022),
and the 12-minute Capsid (2022).
Quality is rarely proportional to quantity.
The subdued 44-minute piece of Xhurchless (2023) documents the first live collaboration with his wife Tatyana.
The 50-minute 2023 (2023) attests to the degree of sophistication achieved by his digital composition, thanks to the latest software and hardware tools.
It matches the austere elegance of electroacoustic chamber music, although it
hardly compares in emotional terms with his early hurricanes.
Incapable of editing his material, in the same year Waldron released:
The World And How It Operates (2023),
the 24-minute The Principle Of Intrusive Relationships In Sediment Trap (2023),
and the 18-minute Ancient Krell Dinner Music I (2023).
