MCMS
1997-2000

[Click here for audio sample]

"Formed in the cultural pothole of Lincoln, Nebraska, by Matt Silcock, Steve Rolfsmeier and Last Visible Dog label head Chris Moon, MCMS were krautrock-inspired noiseniks who released a small pile of recordings in the late-’90s. This set collects the majority of the group’s catalogue, offering a comprehensive study of these Midwestern experimentalists’ varied, yet fascinating body of work. The first disc contains the entirety of the group’s third release, 1998’s MCMS 3, and selections from their first two discs, ’97’s Factory in Heaven and ’98’s Festum Asinorum. The three tracks from Factory are unremarkable compositions that pit Rolfmeier’s paint-can percussion against tugging waves of noise and Silcock’s sax skronks. By the time of MCMS 3, the group had settled into more of a groove – literally – spitting out shards of dissonance amidst post-kraut clatter. Disc Two, containing the 1999 MCMS album, is a far more mature and adventurous work. The acoustic guitar, flute and percussion that appears on “Prelude to the MCMS Album of Love,” “?” and “We Love, You Love, Me Love” shows their sound meandering into free-folk territory remarkably similar to the kind being practiced by the current crop of earthen psych experimenters. Even the brutal material is sharper and more focused; “Dean Thompson, Killer of the Living” is a vicious stomp where all sounds, save for an insistent rattle, are forged into a searing drone. The group’s most interesting material appears on the final disc. Featuring pieces of the group’s split recording with Yermo – The Womb That Gives Birth to Itself and the epic Great Golden Hive Of the Invisible, the work here is a prime distillation of the previous releases. The 30-minute Womb, is filled with eerily beautiful, slow motion droning and thunderous thuds. Golden Hive adds some electronic fuckery and tripped-out guitar, most notably on the six-string and keys duet “Flicker and Fade On The Planet Where You Are.” Silcock’s hilarious tongue-in-cheek liner notes are an added plus, a good read that simultaneously pokes fun at the group while reciting the history of “the greatest Nebraska band of all time.”
--Ethan Covey, Dusted Magazine

"Ever since we first heard the mysterious MCMS, sharing space with the equally mysterious Yermo on a cd-r released on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomena cd-r label, we were hooked. Big time. Two absolutely stunning cd-r's followed. But as with most cd-r's they quickly went out of print and were seemingly lost forever. Well lucky for us, AQ pal Chris Moon who runs the Last Visible Dog label (and who just happens to be in MCMS) has stepped up and re-released on real cds both of those out of print discs, adding their half of the aforementioned split with Yermo as well as the tracks from their lathe cut lp on Eclipse (which was limited to 50 copies). Everything all in one convenient triple cd package. So what the hell does it sound like you ask? Imagine a weird, British style folk, loosely strummed acoustic guitars, warbly flute and urgently whispered vocals. Churning hyperdistorted guitars, random, 'free' percussion, sometimes just a simple plodding thud, all deteriorating into soft mumbly melodies and found sounds, mysterious and ambient. Dirty, gritty garage-y dirge/drone rock, Krautrock-ish rhythms filtered through a Dead C noiserock aesthetic that veers into noisy freakout territory, careening wildly from tuneless, Comus style pagan folk to chaotic free rock, to blissful dronescapes. A meandering soundscape of clatter and buzz, drone and thump, skree and whir, all very atmospheric. Moments of Sunroof! like lo-fi bliss disrupted by bursts of spastic percussive splatter and amp/instrument malfunction. Anyone into NZ noise rock (Dead C, Gate, etc), the current crop of free folk (Jewelled Antler, NNCK, Sunburned Hand, etc.) or just weird and wonderful, fucked up and noisy experimental free-folk-rock-noise-whatever definitely needs this."
--Aquarius Records

"Underground American label Last Visible Dog's home band, MCMS, has released a handful of albums during its relatively brief and episodic existence, all of which were available in very limited prints. This three-CD set (including member Matt Silcock's extensive and casual liner notes) delivers the facts, sets the record straight, and salvages a lot of material, from the group's first session up to its next-to-last album. 1997-2000 favors a chronological order, which means that the best music comes last. Before reaching the bliss of disc three, the listener goes through moments of average outsider improv, embarrassing experiments, and occasional gems. Disc one features all of the 1998 album MCMS 3 (first released as a CD-R by Last Visible Dog), plus excerpts from the debut effort Factory in Heaven (also on LVD) and sophomore Festum Asinorum (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon). These are crude experiments between Silcock, LVD owner Chris Moon, and Steve Rolfsmeier. Paint cans, guitar, sax, and cheap electronics are used to create homemade psychedelia. There are interesting moments, namely in "For the Love of Lucy, Wherever I May Find It" and the opening "Lemmy Kilmeister Getting Kicked Out of Hawkwind," but this disc is for the completist or devoted fan. Disc two is the complete reissue of the 1999 eponymous album (also known as MCMS 4 or The Album of Love, released by LVD), and this one is a keeper. The music features more confident musicianship, better-focused ideas, and a much stronger sense for the drone. "Dean Thompson, Killer of the Living" and "The Two Broken into One" stand out. But it all pales in comparison to disc three, which presents MCMS's 30-minute contribution to a split Celebrate Psi Phenomenon release with Yermo and excerpts from the 2000 album The Great Golden Hive of the Invisible (first released by Eclipse as a two-LP set). Here, the group members (minus Rolfsmeier, plus Kris Lapke) have become masters of the stretched-out psychedelic improv. The sax is also out, replaced by a bigger arsenal of basic electronics. "The Womb That Gives Birth to Itself" (the split-CD track) is a memorable piece of ego-fusing drone. MCMS is not one of those highly influential, cult underground groups. It was only a bunch of friends getting together about once a year to jam. And it just so happens that some of those jams, especially the later ones, are worth listening to."
--François Couture, All Music Guide

THE WIRE HATES MY BAND!!!
I don't normally post negative reviews (*cough* not that I get many *cough*), but this one is so over the top (especially for the Wire) that I had to post it here. Don't you just need to hear what made David Keenan write such a scathing review?

"...is an ambitous vanity project, three self-released CDs documenting the scant career highs and staggering derivative lows of the self-appointed "greatest Nebraska band of all time". MCMS -- Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry -- were birthed in 1997 off the back of a local community radio show on KZUM in Lincoln, Nebraska. Run by Chris Moon and Steve Rolfsmeier, it spun alternative canon classics drawn from the annals of Krautrock, modern classical, psychedelia and free jazz, topped off with contemporary moves from the Japanese underground and punk primitives like Charalambides and Dead C. Matt Silcock, a lonely local avantist starving for intelligent company, quickly made contact and the trio immediately made plans to record. Back then Moon was starting his own CD-R label, Last Visible Dog, an imprint that specialized in poorly presented recordings from among others, Shizuka, Shuji Inaba, Thuja and Dead Raven Choir, so the group quickly found a home.
The first CD features cuts from their early releases MCMS 3 and Factory In Heaven, and a duo recording that came out via Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomena imprint in New Zealand. Silcock's hilariously arrogant sleevenotes provide convenient map points for every spurt and bleep, each track reducible to who they were trying to emulate, parody, rip off or curry favour with. While there isn't a single sound on any of these three discs that would pass as spontaneous, original thought, the early recordings are a beautiful riposte to anyone dumb enough to maintain that decent lo-fi drone is in the reach of anyone with some FX pedals and an old amp that sings. Here the drones are paper thin, barely hair static, accompanied by haphazard, though determinedly "ritualistic" percussion. "It's sort of like how Nurse With Wound started out with the Chance Meeting LP, except Factory In Heaven is much better," beams Silcock, evidently from somewhere in an alternative universe. The yucks continue on CD two, with the addition of new members Kris Lapke, whom Silcock unashamedly describes as "quite the musical adept -- he would hear an album and then just brilliantly imitate it".
On The Womb That Give Birth To Itself (the title is a 'tribute' to Fushitsusha) the quartet attempts to catch up with the avant folk movement with some gutless lo-fi indie-rock that makes Lou Barlow's Sentridoh sound as advanced as Throbbing Gristle. The more self-consciously monolithic improvisations are just as entertaining, especially "The Midwest Center For Marsupial Simulation", an ecstatic blowout that combines a perfunctory two-note organ pattern with drums that play in time. The final disc collects two sides of a double LP released in 2002 in an edition of 50 copies, with the trio of Moon, Silcock and Lapke engaging in some of the most tepid Krautrock posturing yet conceived by humans. The whole set is a breathtaking work of folly, a fan indulgence that doesn't even have the good-natured dignity of most tribute groups. For their sakes, let it sink."

David Keenan, The Wire, June 2004

Following are reviews of the original cd-r releases:

"This is really delicious; depending upon your tastes and appetite. Chris Moon and Matt Silcock are joined by new member Kris "Furisubi" Lapke to make a primitive collective rhythmic strum that has a heavy gravity at it's core. A cardboard rocketship aimed at the sun. Kitchen sink percussion and acid damaged folk stir in a teapot of time, letting it soak for awhile. Light refracts from the toaster, eternity is glimpsed in the steam that rises as we simmer. The Midwest Center for Marsupial Simulation starts as random radio, a humming keyboard seesaw, organic drums in a loop, and it all gels into this hypnotic groove from another world. Instinctive outsider jazz folk psychedelic mutation. Time defying trance inducing transcendent glee and interaction, this could be 30 years ago or yesterday, but it feel vividly alive right now."

George Parsons
Dream Magazine #3

"Hands raised immediately in a gesture of warning. Lincoln, Nebraska's MCMS are friends of ours. But does that fact stop us from digging the fourth enigmatic and extremely varied outing from this psychoactive group consisting of Broken Face contributor Chris Moon, Matt Silcock, Kris Lapke, and Steve Rolfsmeier? Hardly, and I doubt that it will stop you either. Simply because this is such a fine set and such a weird amalgam of psychedelic drone rock, Krautrock, stoner folk and even free jazz that it fulfills every whim of what you might want to listen to at any moment in a foreseeable future. This is like going into a musical library, and having the ability to explore all the 'weird' shelves simultaneously.

The opening 'Prelude To the MCMS Album of Love' is to say the least a surprise: a beautiful instrumental folk number sounding like the crossed-legged hippie's wettest dream. The following 'Dean Thompson, Killer of the Living' wins me over with completely different features, 11 minutes of swirling masses of scorching guitar workouts that quietly scream to be treasured and played to death. I doubt that'll happen but I sense that any fans of the acid-drenched beauty of Major Stars or Bardo Pond really would dig this. The despairing "Bruce Has Gone To The Great Bong In The Sky" ornamented with dark and vulnerable vocals is a fantastic folk gem that hovers like the morning mist over a mountain lake. The gentle windstorm of 'The One Broken In Two' whispers its way to bliss-out spectrum before the free prog number "it's Raining Rye Loaves And Cookies' barely keeps us afloat in deeply hallucinogenic waters. Then things take a decidedly more electronic turn on 'The Midwest Center For Marsupial Simulation' which gives way for the mystic avant-garde jazz of 'Bleak Beach Blues.' On 'The Two Broken Into One," MCMS unleash a wash fo chiming drones set for inner mind exploration in a way that very few except Pelt and perhaps a handful of New Zealanders can do as well. The closing "Theme of Love" give us more of the same but also with plenty of space left for the occasional guitar burst that threatens to cause severe brain damage.

Although spanning over an incredibly large musical map this record holds together amazingly well. If you ever looked for the lost link between Ghost, Don Cherry and Pelt you may very well have found it."

-- review by Mats Gustafsson, The Broken Face #9.

"We totally loved the MCMS cd-r on Celebrate Psi Phenomena (a split with Yermo, now out of print), so we were pretty psyched for TWO new titles courtesy of our pals at Last Visible Dog. Starts off as weird, British style folk, loosely strummed acoustic guitars, warbly flute and urgently whispered vocals. This soon becomes a dirty, gritty garage-y dirge/drone rock workout. Krautrock-ish rhythms filtered through a Dead C noiserock aesthetic that veers into noisy freakout territory. The record continues on, careening wildly from tuneless, Comus style pagan folk to chaotic free rock, to blissful dronescapes. Good stuff."
--Aquarius Records

"Starting with the evocatively (and appropriately) titled ‘Lemmy Kilminster Getting Kicked out of Hawkwind,’ Nebraska's MCMS continue in a rather disturbed communal rock freak-out style. By disturbed, I mean there's more impassioned screaming than enlightened moaning, and more harsh feedback than hovering cumulous feedback. Other tracks, like ‘Beloit vs. Mingo,’ carry a late-night malevolence, and the percussion throughout sounds like someone pounding a table covered with coins. The more austere moments, such as ‘MCMS vs. Brain Damage,’ and the untitled third track suggest what might have happened if, while opening for Pink Floyd, AMM had actually let some of that group's influence seep in."
- Chris Sienko

"This is dirge-y, dirty, grungy tribal FREEROCK. '3' starts off with churning hyperdistorted guitars, random, 'free' percussion, sometimes just a simple plodding thud, which all deteriorate into softly strummed guitars and found sounds, mysterious and ambient. The rest of the record is a meandering soundscape of clatter and buzz, drone and thump, skree and whir, all very atmospheric. Moments of Sunroof! like lo-fi bliss disrupted by bursts of spastic percussive splatter and amp/instrument malfunction."
--Aquarius Records