After four years of a minimal mess of a web site, Ersatz Audio's website has received a full makeover. Now you can view very detailed and well-organized information on every one of Ersatz' twenty-seven releases from the likes of ADULT., Magas, and DMX Crew. There are even 64kbps mp3s to download from several of the info pages. Most of the catalogue is available for purchase through mailorder and/or Paypal.

Equally exciting is the addition of a separate web site for ADULT. Now you can browse their releases, check out the photographicide of ADULT.'s Nicola Kuperus, see snapshots from their live shows and, oddly enough, the hotels they've stayed in on the road—all in the creepy, post-coital icepick-to-the-throat style we've come to expect from the duo.

The Matthew Herbert Big Band - "The Process [Album Version]". Taken from the Big Band's first single, The Process, the Parts, the Many and the Few, "The Process" is the culmination of Matthew Herbert's demanding composition methods, some of which are sampled on the record. Over the course of three tracks, Herbert moves from a solitary piano sketch to a naff MIDI arrangement for bass, winds, and brass to the recording session with his Abbey Road crew. In the album version [which, incidentally, is not included in Goodbye Swingtime], the richness of his technique comes into full view—an catty vocal from Jamie Lidell; organic rythms culled from Herbert's sacrosanct soundbank; and enoughs cuts, clicks and buzzes to rival smalltown barber shop on a Saturday afternoon.

Other previously unreleased material featured on the disc are pieces of "Fiction" [a twenty-second section excised from the album version and in true Herbert form, a recording of the band playing their individual parts by rapping on their music stands] and half-tempo and half-tempo/octave down trials of "Everything's Changed," both from Goodbye Swingtime. There's also a Big Band arrangement of a favorite from Doctor Rockit [one of Herbert's alter egos], "Café de Flore."

The Process, The Parts is a must-listen for any Eavesdropping-Tom interested in the empirical idiosyncracy of Matthew Herbert—one that serves to arouse the anticipatory ear and palate for his next solo album, which should be quite tasty. Appropriate, considering its subject—food.

Label: Accidental Records 006
Format: 12"
Web: Matthew Herbert's Magic and Accident

AsFour and Björk as featured Vogue's February 2004 article on New York fashion, "Madness, Mayhem, Rookies & Rivals" by Robert Sullivan. Photo by Mario Testino.

In As Four's silver Chinatown loft, from left: Adi, Kai, model Natalia Vodianova, Björk, Ange, and Gabi, all wearing As Four.