American experimental electronic musician, producer, and composer.

Born: 1964.

M.C. Schmidt is best known as one half of an acclaimed duo [[artist:Matmos]]. He also used to be an assistant manager of the New Genres Department at [[label:San Francisco Art Institute]], where Martin taught people to edit video and use necessary lighting and sound equipment, and also maintained a small computer lab. In the eighties, Schmidt played in a legendary occult-avantgarde band [[artist:Iao Core]]. He also collaborated with [[artist:Kris Force]] (of [[artist:Amber Asylum]]), and played synthesizer on a few [[artist:Frozeninamber]] tracks.

Martin met [[artist:Drew Daniel]] around 1989 at Uranus, a gay bar in San Francisco, where Drew worked as a go go dancer. Prior to that, Daniel saw Schmidt playing with IAO Core at [[label:Ordo Templi Orientis]]'s event at [[label:924 Gilman Street]]. Eventually the two started dating and formed the [[artist:Matmos]] band together – named after a 'seething lake of evil slime' beneath the Sogo city in the film "Barbarella (1968).

After making music together privately for a few years, in 1997 Drew and Martin established [[label:Vague Terrain]] label and self-released their debut album "[r=63794]" (1997). Since then, the duo have released over ten albums, as well as numerous collaborations and EPs on many labels, including [[label:Matador]], [[label:Thrill Jockey]], [[label:Deluxe (6)]], [[label:Tigerbeat6]], [[label:Important Records (2)]], [[label:FatCat Records]], [[label:Locust Music]], and other independent labels.

As half of Matmos, Schmidt has worked with [[artist:Terry Riley]], [[artist:Kronos Quartet]], [[artist:Peter Rehberg]], [[label:INA-GRM]], [[artist:Rrose]], [[artist:Marshall Allen]], [[artist:Horse Lords]], [[artist:Vicki Bennett]] ([[artist:People Like Us]]), [[artist:Keith Fullerton Whitman]], [[artist:Antony Hegarty]], [[artist:William Basinski]], and many others. For many years, Matmos had been collaborating with Icelandic artist [[artist:Björk]], producing several remixes, and later contributed to a few of her albums. Schmidt and Daniel accompanied Björk on Vespertine World Tour (2001) and Greatest Hits Tour (2003) as part of her live band. In 1997-1998, Daniel and Schmidt recorded several glitch albums with [[artist:Miguel Depedro]] ([[artist:Kid606]]) as [[artist:Disc]].

In 2009, Schmidt hosted a series of improvisational sessions with [[artist:Lisle Ellis]], a veteran jazz bassist who have played with [[artist:Cecil Taylor]], [[artist:Fred Frith]], [[artist:John Zorn]], and the likes, and [[artist:Jason Willett]] ([[artist:1/2 Japanese]]) at his home in Baltimore. A newly formed [[artist:Instant Coffee!]] trio saw Ellis exploring the electroacoustic combination of traditional jazz techniques with real-time computer processing, Schmidt playing the usual variety of bizarre percussion, non-musical objects and synthesizers, and Jason Willett jamming on contact mic'ed rubber band, Sidrassi Organ, and custom-made electronic instruments. The sessions were documented on "[r=3098581] (2010), a limited edition album on [[label:Alga Marghen]]'s [[label:Planam]] sublabel.

Schmidt released his first solo album "[m=839776]" (2015), recorded on prepared piano, Chinese flute, Roland SH-101, Roland V-Synth, T.C. Helicon VoiceLive II, and other machines. It features [[artist:Wobbly]] and [[artist:Thomas Dimuzio]] on miscellaneous synthesizers and electronics, Batu Malablab presents an original gamelan-inspired experimental take on Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" and other Western cosmopolitan renditions of non-western world music.

He also made a soundtrack to a Jeffrey Rettberg's 27-min film, "Devotion" (2017).