Matthew Herbert – Plat Du Jour

It's probably premature to call _Plat Du Jour_ Matthew Herbert's triumph (seeing as how he's still making music), but of his works thus far, this is far and away my personal favorite. It works beautifully as a piece of conceptual, political art -- that you can dance to! Who knew that chickens and tapped eggs could result in the funkily sublime "The Truncated Life of a Modern Industrialised Chicken"? Sure, it's not pure musique concrete (Herbert its freely to fiddling with the sampler knobs), but that freewheeling spirit lives on in the whistling water bottles of "These Branded Waters" or the bouncing, grinding beans of "An Empire of Coffee." Dani Siciliano makes an appearance on the droll "Celebrity" -- anyone who namechecks Beyonce and Gordon Ramsey is ok in my book. The politics of the pieces only emerge in the context of the liner notes, which makes Herbert's accomplishments seem all the more masterful. See, for instance, what went into the making of "Nigella, George, Tony and Me," and you can better appreciate its craftsmanship -- and humor. He also manages melancholy in "The Final Meal of Stacey Lawton" -- all the more tragic once you know the story behind the track. Groovy, musical, and meaningful -- all in one album. It's a real feast.