Plat Du Jour [Import]

Matthew Herbert | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 13, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Accidental
• ASIN: B00080CPM8
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,710 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Truncated Life Of A Modern Industrialized Chicken

2. These Branded Waters

3. Pigs In Sh*t

4. An Empire Of Coffee

5. Celebrity

6. Hidden Sugars

7. An Apple A Day…

8. Fatter, Smiller, Faster, Slower

9. The Final Meal Of Stacey Lawton

10. The Nine Seeds Of Navdanya

11. Waste Land

12. Nigella, George, Tony, And Me

Editorial Reviews

Plat du Jour is Matthew Herbert’s first new album since 2003’s acclaimed and hugely successful Goodbye Swingtime. Featuring contributions from Dani Siciliano, master chef Heston Blumenthal (recreating Stacey Lawton’s final meal on Death Row) world coffee authority Antony Wild and long time Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood, 30,000 broiler chickens, 3255 people eating apples and a recreation of the lunch shared by Tony Blair and George Bush run over by a Chieftain tank.

Moving back to his more electronic style, the music of Plat Du Jour is at once playful and ominous. With a staggering attention to detail Plat Du Jour promises to be a genre defining moment in modern electronic music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Energetic and Conceptual, September 26, 2005

By 

C. R Bender (Toledo, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plat Du Jour (Audio CD)

I admire Matthew Herbert. The man has a distinct style and, with this album especially, gets the listener involved. You really shouldn't listen to this without reading the liner notes for each track. When you read the liner notes while each song plays, you understand the whole idea behind this album. I can sum up the main idea in one word: Consumerism. I think Matthew's intention was to educate people on issues of consumerism. Issues such as teen dieting, food treatment and production, the environment, our screwed up government (i'm using too nice words), and celebrities endorsing products that make people fat. But you would probably never know that he wanted to bring these issues to your attention if you never read the liner notes. So read them! By reading the notes you'll also learn all the crazy things he used to make sounds: chicken coops, empty cans of Slimfast diet drinks, frying sausages, underground sewer sounds, a knife scraping toast, and I could go on and on and on. Again, most of these sounds you wouldn't even realize he used unless you read the notes. You would realize that the music here is energetic, playful, and unusual.

There is alot of statistics that deal with food and drink (i.e. there are 10 teaspoons of sugar in a can of coca cola) which made me think twice about what I eat, but then a few minutes go by and I go to the freezer for some ice cream. I know that soda is bad, and fried chicken is not exactly a healthy choice, but I consider myself to be health conscious and I see nothing wrong with moderation. But seriously, Herbert gets into more than just what's healthy and not healthy. He digs deeper and is much more cultured and politically minded than I'll ever be.

There's only ONE track with vocals (by vocals I mean, Dani, a female vocalist singing in the "Celebrity" track), so if you are wanting vocals you may be disappointed. If you are one who must have vocals I would highly recommend an album that M.H. produced: Roisen Murphy's "Ruby Blue." That one is more addicting than a tub of Ben & Jerry's.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed but not Deterred, February 2, 2006

By 

:: "silvarga" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plat Du Jour (Audio CD)

I'm not especially enjoying Plat Du Jour. After Bodily Functions and Goodbye Swingtime, I really feel disappointment when hearing the direction Matthew has gone in with this LP. Most of it feels like background electronica I might hear while viewing a musical documentary like a collage of scenes spliced together in an art film or something by Nils Peter Molvaer.

After hearing Roisin Murphy's new album I though for sure that Herbert's next LP would be revolutionary, something that set the stage for a new genre that fully mixed electronic music with the syncopation and sound of 20's & 30's ragtime/swing. Unfortunately (in his own work) Herbert no longer seems to be championing the sound that made his production immediately recognizeable.

It's every artist's right to evolve, even if it's not in the direction some of their fans hope for. For those of you who identify with the sound I alluded to above (and who loved Roisin's "Ruby Blue") there are a couple artists that i think exude qualities that make up the Herbert sound. Unfortunately they are listed only on Amazon's French site, but you can still have a listen (and have them imported): One of my favorites is an artist called Nôze. Their album "Craft Sounds and Voices" is awesome: www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00081TXTK/

For those of you that love smoother vocals in the forefront, try French singer Camille's album "le fil" she uses organic samples of her own voice throughout the CD with electronic and folk influences. www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007DAYBA/.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PLAT DU JOUR IS HARD TO SWALLOW!!!, November 10, 2005

By 

Darrell L. Lee "dlatrell" (Jackson, MS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plat Du Jour (Audio CD)

I'll be the first one to say that I am the ultimate Matthew Herbert fan--admiring his uncanny ability to manipulate everyday sounds into beautiful and sometimes funky musical arrangements. I mean, the man took household sounds (dishes clanging and alarm clocks ringing) and bodily functions (baby girgles, flatulence and God knows what else) and created the impressive and enigmatic "Around the House" and "Bodily Functions". He also, from my understanding, took a notebook being banged on a microphone and created a song on Roisin Murphy's "Ruby Blue". But Plat Du Jour--I don't know--is a bit hard to swallow...First, I understand the concept...and it may actually be a good one--I do acquiese that a lot of stuff that we as consumers buy are bad for us and are highly overrated (Starbucks coffee does come to mind)...Only it's overdone throughout the entire release and not done in an easily accessible manner, one in which your average Slimfast, Coca-Cola or Dasani bottled water drinker would understand. C'mon, Herbert--where are the catchy basslines...the instruments...the hypnotic vocals (except, of course from Dani Siciliano on the egregiously sarcastic "Celebrity"--"Go, Beyonce--Go, Beyonce!!")? It sounds like everything here is done with some pedestrian, and in most cases, ridiculous sounds--i.e. farm animals...people biting apples...water bottles...coffee beans...sugar...etc. Plat Du Jour is supposed to address commercialism and the overuse and abuse of certain consumer products. Unfortunately, unless you read the liner notes, you aren't immediately aware of that. Perhaps segues or more vocals would have made this release more of a public service, unfortunately I'm left terribly unsatisfied and unconvinced that some products are bad for you based on this material. I will remain a loyal fan of Mr. Matthew Herbert with the hopes that in the future he releases something a little more "digestible!"