Beef Terminal profile picture

Beef Terminal

USING CAUTION SINCE 1995

About Me

Toronto's MD Matheson has been making ambient/electronic/post-rock instrumental guitar music under the name Beef Terminal since 1995. Starting with low key indie releases (1995's cassette only release "Old Mill/Claire") and eventually signing with Toronto's renowned home of all "beautiful music", Noise Factory Records (first home of Broken Social Scene, BSS splinter band KC Accidental, NAW, Minisystem, Sparrow Orange, Robin Judge and Tinkertoy) in 2000, Beef Terminal released the influential ambient/electronic guitar based album "20 GOTO 10". The album was a perfect introduction to the looping guitar sounds and galloping beats that have now become Beef Terminal's trademark. The album made waves on campus radio in Canada, as well as selling well in Germany, Spain, France and Japan. 2002 saw the followup to "20 GOTO 10" when "The Grey Knowledge" was released in July of that year. Continuing on the feel of "20 GOTO 10" yet with more sophistication, Beef Terminal marked this release by playing the first ever live shows to support the project. In late 2003 Noise Factory released "The Isolationist", and it marked a newer more mature direction, which was greeted ecstatically by music fans on both sides of the Atlantic. Sales in Canada, the United States, Germany, France, Spain and Japan hit new highs, and the album became a staple of Canadian Campus Radio for 2004, eventually earning the ..32 spot of 2004 as one of the most played records of the year. Late in 2004 a b-side and unreleased material limited edition album "Crosscheck and Departure" was released on smaller Hamilton indie label Worthy Records. Beef Terminal appeared alongside Noise Factory's Joe English at the 2005 SONAR Music Festival in Barcelona, presenting a DJ set to a packed room at the John Peel Stage. Noise Factory Records released "Anger Do Not Enter", Beef Terminal's fifth album on October 18th 2005. In the summer of 2006 Beef Terminal went on indefinite hiatus while MD Matheson moved on to his latest project The Sales Department. In 2007 a release of 19 previously unreleased tracks called "Life Without Nostalgia" will be available in an online format only, available at all major online distributors as of the beginning of November 2007. http://www.myspace.com/thesalesdepartment

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/3/2006
Band Website: beefterminal.com
Influences: DJ Shadow, The Books, Boards of Canada, Sparrow Orange, South Pacific, The Smiths, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tears for Fears, Tortoise, Mean Red Spiders, Merck, Do Make Say Think, NAW, Tinkertoy, early Bruce Cockburn, Yo La Tengo, Talk Talk, Sianspheric, early U2, Scanner, Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Sea and Cake, Pan American, Mogwai, KC Accidental, Mice Parade...etc.
Sounds Like: "More classy ambient from Torontos Noise Factory imprint- this time from the mysterious Beef Terminal. Though hes believed to have taken his moniker from a local meatpacking slaughterhouse, there is nothing remotely messy about the floating, melancholic blend of electronica and looping accoustic guitar on offer; its some of the most delicate, gently moving music youll hear. The ghostly electronics of Everything Is Alive sets the agenda- the whole record is touched by a dreamy sadness- before sparse drum machine beats and Mathesons introspective guitar notes take over. He goes completely beatless on Knife in the Table and Say It To My Face, before injecting a couple of more complex rhythms behind For the Sullen Lass and Out of Step. You might need to rediscover your pulse after the 11-minute mellow marathon that is We Look To Adults, but its indulgence doesnt detract from the Mogwai-unplugged beauty of the rest of the tracks. A rainy day classic is born."-M8 Magazine

"A serious member of the David Gilmour school of liquidly refracting guitar effects, Matheson suspends ethereal, sweet-toned loops ad infinitum, sometimes over chock-a-block beats, other times over pastoral arrangements sans overt rhythm. There is little diversion from that simple formula, but Matheson's unique way with bittersweet melodies offers a refuge from hard-headed dance drivel. Now if only he could cheer up."-Grooves Magazine

"the strength of his songs don't lie in their spookiness. There are far spookier contemporaries making far sadder and twisted tracks that also cull from analog tape samples and eerie ambiences, but Matheson isn't competing. Where he triumphs isn't in the haze: it's in the solid here and now, in his clear-eyed motifs that repeat like small, satisfied sighs, in melodic arcs of articulate caress. The worst way to spend a stormy day is to wish you were anywhere else but here and alone. The best is embodied by the lovely peace of The Grey Knowledge: instead of wanting out, you want to be right where you are, doing right what you're doing, with the rain splashing through your open window" -Dusted Magazine
Record Label: Noise Factory Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

maybe

i’m thinking of making another BT album these last few weeks i started thinking about it and now i recorded a couple of lofi 20GOTO10 style trax and they sounded pretty good to me just because t...
Posted by Beef Terminal on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:57:00 PST

Life Without Nostalgia October 30ish

Hello here is info about "Life Without Nostalgia" the final or almost final BT release of previously unreleased stuff...it should be out roughly October 30 on all the major online distributors etc, no...
Posted by Beef Terminal on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:27:00 PST

NEW SALES DEPARTMENT TRACKS

I've finally completed a few tracks for my new project called The Sales Department. They are early songs but I'm constantly recording these days and plan to change them up often. Check it out at htt...
Posted by Beef Terminal on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:56:00 PST

"Crosscheck" reissue

hello and happy new year friends. just wanted to let you all know that there will be a final BT release coming out in the next few months, Noise Factory and Worthy are teaming up to provide an online...
Posted by Beef Terminal on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:44:00 PST

videos

posted two older videos: "An Early Start" from "The Grey Knowledge" and "Daydreams of Wasted Time" from "The Isolationist". The compression is a little shoddy, but whatever.
Posted by Beef Terminal on Tue, 08 Aug 2006 12:25:00 PST

myspace rookie

ok so this is my first post as a myspace virgin. as far as i know i am the last noise factory artist to have a myspace page. while it is true that i have put beef terminal on probably permanant hiat...
Posted by Beef Terminal on Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:20:00 PST