Big band jazz is the new punk.

Big band jazz is unlikely to be most people’s first port of call when searching for radical sounds. Unless you’re Matthew Herbert that is. Because his Goodbye Swingtime album possesses the same adventurous attitude he brought to the esoteric electronica of his Herbert guise, and the deep house he plied as Dr Rockit, despite the apparently archaic big band set-up. Far from being rose-tinted elegy, Matthew and his cohorts resuscitate big band jazz with intricate electronics. You might not expect punk to be wearing the evening dress Matthew favours on stage either but that’s the spirit, if not the sound, that Goodbye Swingtime shares.

“For me, punk is about not accepting things as they are,” he says. “The same goes for jazz – it doesn’t go from A to B by the most obvious route. There’s a link in attitude but the process is much more subtle.”

It’s also a reaction against a stagnant electronic music scene Matthew perceives as far more conservative than the sounds of Sun Ra and Charles Mingus that were his guiding lights. “House never surprises me any more,” he laments. “It’s very lazy and that’s something I don’t admire, in music or in life.”

That desire for discipline has spurred him to write the PCCOM (Personal Contract For The Composition Of Music) manifesto. Among other things, it explicitly bans the sampling of other people’s music and states that mistakes must be left in. He is keen for other producers to embrace the ethics, but has no desire to become a figurehead for a movement. “I’m not saying I’ve found the answer to music,” he demurs. “I don’t mind what other people do, as long as they’re not just sampling old records to try and inherit authenticity.”

The integrity inherent in PCCOM also motivates the album’s political impetus, which is firmly at odds with dance music’s usual narcissism. Famous for destroying copies of The Daily Mail onstage, Matthew lists Noam Chomsky, rather than his electronica peers, as his prime inspiration. “A lot of people making electronic music are intelligent, passionate people but I’m disappointed when that doesn’t translate into their music. When you think that every weekend millions of like-minded people all gather together, dance music has huge political potential and yet it’s all about escapism. But in the West we’re the aggressors. So what are we escaping from?”

You say you want a revolution? Well here’s your soundtrack. Paul Clarke 11 July 03

Goodbye Swingtime, available now on Accidental.

The Matthew Herbert Big Band will be performing at the Big Chill at Eastnor Castle 03 Aug 03.

useful link: magic and accident: herbert