On the eve of the release of his new album, HERBERT laments to ANDREW TUTTLE that any considerations he has of a political career would ultimately be futile as “all sorts of controversial things I've said in the past may be dragged up to bring me down.”

Since 1997’s Around The House (a house album created entirely with samples of household objects), British producer Matthew Herbert has released a slew of records both under his own name and alter egos (such as Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy and many others) that have redefined the boundaries of both musique concrete and dance music.

Subsequent releases such as 2003’s Goodbye Swingtime (Herbert’s traditional tribute to big band and swing music) and 2005’s Plat Du Jour (an extensive de-construction of the politics of food) have seen Herbert develop a keen ear for crafting obscure sounds into gorgeous anti-pop suites whilst pushing a decidedly left-wing political agenda.

Herbert’s latest album release Scale is arguably his most commercially digestible work to date. Whilst some of his work has occasionally suffocated under the weight of its dogma; Scale is somewhat thematically relaxed in comparison. Whilst Scale is conceptually linked via a relativity of distance (“[Scale] is about the distance between the things we consume and the things that surround us, where they come from and the circumstances behind their production”) within its twelve tracks (which fittingly equals the twelve notes in the Western musical scale), the message is much more subtle due to the increased use of vocals on the album. Herbert’s wife (and respected artist in her own right) Dani Siciliano lends her sultry vocals to Herbert’s immaculately precise jaunty house number, which further investigations reveal are created utilising samples of recordings of coffins, petrol pumps, meteorites, an RAF Tornado bomber, alongside drum takes recorded underwater, in hot air balloons and in a moving vehicle.

One of Scale’s masterpieces is undoubtedly Just Once, a track comprised of 177 messages left by fans on an answering machine especially set up for the track. In typical Herbert fashion, he’s able to produce a veritable pop song from such disparate sources and simultaneously argue that

“We’re very disconnected with the reality of what we consume, whether its food or technology. I wanted to express this as a metaphor through the recording process. So on this track, I don't know the circumstances behind the manufacturing of these sounds, I don't know anything about them, I don't know what they are. In a way it’s a metaphor for how I don't know where my food and goods come from.”

Furthermore, Herbert allowed himself to break the laws of his own Personal Contract For The Composition Of Music [Incorporating The Manifesto Of Mistakes] (PCCOM) in Scale’s creative process, as a way to free himself from some of the demoralising stresses of Plat Du Jour. Essentially, the PCCOM is Herbert’s compositional bible, whereby he forbids himself from utilising program and effects presets and sampling in addition to painstakingly notating his sound sources for the wider public (PCCOM is published at http://www.magicandaccident.com/mh/Manifesto/Manifestoinfo.htm). However, by Herbert’s admission, 98% of the album was created via PCCOM regardless, excluding a few preset sounds.

Not one to want to stop creative momentum despite promoting a new album, Herbert is already tossing up two possible concepts for new works.

“One would be extreme recording. For Scale I recorded drums in a hot air balloon, at 100mph in the back of my car, under water, so I'm considering doing a record like that. I'm also considering doing a record where I don't tell anybody where the noises come from and see if people can understand.”

In addition to his notoriety for the sampling background to his pieces, Herbert is equally infamous for his strongly left-leaning political ethos. In an environment where music is largely either politically impotent or smacking of tokenism, Herbert has consistently put himself out on a limb to state his opinions on politics and the inner workings of consumerism and capitalism.

Amongst other releases, the blatantly anti-multinational The Mechanics Of Destruction (available for free download at www.themechanicsofdestruction.org) and Plat Du Jour have been explicitly focused on anti-globalisation. Plat Du Jour is a full-frontal assault on the politics of food, with the mind-boggling liner noting the link between each sound and disturbing realities about how the food we eat gets to our table. Discussion turns to how partisan politics is impeding any hope of changes vital to the survival of the human race:

“It’s incredibly frustrating because there's certain things like the environment that should be beyond party politics, we've all got to drink the water and breathe the air; so those decisions should be made for the benefit of everybody rather than made political footballs.”

Although interested in politics, Herbert believes a political career ultimately would be a doomed exercise as “all sorts of controversial things I've said in the past may be dragged up to bring me down.” To counter that, Herbert asserts that my voice might be cast better within music, as there's not so much activism within it.”

As one of many fed up with the control of right-wing “compassionate conservatism” groups and the ineptitude of so called “left-wing” oppositions to distinguish themselves from their opponents’ policies, Herbert’s attempting to start an online cultural revolution, Country X. Formed earlier this year with Gary Hall and Robert Smith (no, not THAT one) as an alternative to the potential closed-mindedness of nation-states, Country X freely invites prospective ‘citizens’ to immigrate and contribute via their website (http://www.countryx.org). Explaining the concept of Country X, Herbert muses that

“I was fed up with the way my own country's politics were going and the politics around me. Also that what the Republican party does in America for example has quite a big impact on my life, and yet we have no way of responding to that other than saying we don't like it. I wanted to create a new country… an open-source country basically defined by its principles and belief, rather than because you were born somewhere. It’s a virtual space that's free to become anything to anybody.”

Whilst Matthew Herbert’s past and present is the result of an inventive response to political and economic aberrations, his recognition that the future (both musically and politically) is open to interpretation holds him and discerning listeners in good stead.

Scale is out now through Accidental/Inertia

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