Matthew Welch
The Library of Babel

The soaring exaltation of the bagpipe rejects timid spirits. Pitched high, the skirl of the chanter seeds clouds that rain harmonics, while on the low end… there’s the drone. That drone, that tectonic, guttural roar of fearsome euphoria, a deep, terraformational Om that pummels you in the sporran. And from the clutches of master piper Mattew Welch, glories emanate. He expertly inverts genre and convention, from Indonesian gamelan and experimental sound composition to rock, improvisation, and Highland classical, and through myriad exchanges with artists including Anthony Braxton, Alvin Lucier, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, and members of Bang a Can and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Here, Matthew Welch resonates within a free-form, extended-duration power trio. As a founding member of the electric guitar quartet Dither, Brendon Randall-Meyers has performed works by minimalist pioneers Laurie Spiegel, Steve Reich, and Phill Niblock. In auditory tints and ombrés, that aesthetic seeps and saturates. Electroacoustic composer and drummer Brian Chase is both the weave of a basket and the serpent within, voicing slow-predation menace. Churning the infinities of its Borgesian namesake, The Library of Babel sprawls to a shuddering, heaving climax of near-ultrasonic highs and infrasonic lows, registering awe in the Ur-language of sound.

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“Most music nowadays is some kind of cultural hybrid, but rarely is someone as all over the map as Matthew Welch. Welch’s music is the by-product of an unlikely blend—Indonesian gamelan, Scottish bagpipes, and indie rock. While these types of music might initially seem completely unrelated, Welch has found his compositional voice in their common ground.”
—Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox

“… Exquisitely ethereal, made up of delicate, transparent textures that hum with expressive tension. If Mr. Welch were a chef, he’d be the kind who pushes the boundaries of molecular gastronomy, transforming earthy ingredients into translucent beads of pure flavor.”
— New York Times

“Pushing the bagpipes to their limit, Welch creates icy sheets of black metal distortion and feedback … his exploration of the bagpipes’ sonic potential is thrilling.”
—The Wire

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Matthew Welch
The Library of Babel
2025
Table of the Elements
[Nitrogen] 7
EOE-007
Phono 12” LP, 180g vinyl

 
 
 

 

A Conduit for History Exploding in the Present Moment

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Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present
A Film by Tyler Hubby

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Since 1993, Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century -- and beyond. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

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