Rachel’s Full on Night (with Matmos)

[Quarterstick; 2000]

Styles: modern classical, post-rock
Others: Clogs, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Carter Burwell, Maya Beiser


The idea for this EP arose from the variation in the "Full On Night" live performances. The song had originally appeared on Rachel's (Jason Noble, Christian Fredrickson, Rachel Grimes) debut album Handwriting. Because of the variations, Rachel's decided to re-mix the song in 1997 with the help of producer Bob Weston (Shellac), using new recordings and clips from live show mixes. What they came up with is more of a remake of the song rather than a remix.

The song starts out with a slowly rising church organ which then slowly phases out at about the one minute mark. At the same time, Jason Noble (Rodan) enters in with a solo serenading guitar piece. The rest of the band joins him after a minute, and the song continues on with impressive swells and surges. Once you reach the six-minute mark you feel like you are submerged in a raging ocean but you can still feel the suns rays. The ultimate transition begins at around eight minutes into the song where there is building confusion which breaks into more of a rock section at around ten minutes. The rock section includes an Albini-esque guitar wank with a church organ playing defense. The song is only about 12 minutes long, but will supply you with endless listening enjoyment.

Rachel's then hands the song over to Matmos (Drew Daniel, M.C. Schmidt), where they completely mutate the piece into an unrecognizable organism. Renamed "The Precise Temperature of Darkness," the song begins with digital ambient noises with the emergence of a tribal beat, reminiscent of Bjork. Matmos demonstrates their unique composing and sampling abilities with the scraping guitar cuts and the percussion section from hell. Give one listen and you'll know what I'm talking about.

1. Full on Night [Recension Mix]
2. The Precise Temperature of Darkness