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Those of you who tend toward squeamishness should first listen to Matmos' new album, A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, without reading its liner notes. You'll hear a playful and inventive collection of electronic instrumentals, a natural progression of the sample-based music that the San Francisco couple of M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel have been creating for a few years now. Then flip open the CD booklet to discover Cut's curious underside: It's primarily built around sounds that Matmos recorded during medical procedures, including liposuctions, acupuncture, and laser eye corrections. Suddenly "body music" takes on an entirely new meaning. "The way that people think of electronics is in terms of coldness and machines, so I wanted to exaggerate that by making a record about medical technology," Daniel explains. "But also, you don't think of these sounds as just machines. You think, 'What are they doing to a person?' So it becomes very physical." That's true; once you know the sources of the schlurps and bzzzts on Cut, their presence in pop-oriented compositions becomes all the more fascinating. Daniel says the first song that emerged for the album was the perky but slightly sinister "California Rhinoplasty," which is resplendent in a nose job's whirrs and burbles. "It wanted to be a house tune," he says. "And the idea of making bubbling, happy music out of something that gradually reveals itself to be disturbing ... that's all part of the plan." Another striking track is "For Felix (And All the Rats)," a tingly, netherworldly elegy for the duo's dearly departed pet rat. It's created from sounds generated by his empty cage. "We weren't sure if it should go on this record," Daniel admits. "But the theme is medical technology and the equipment used to generate medical knowledge. And rats' bodies are absolutely a part of modern medicine." Cut keeps with Matmos' philosophy of sculpting songs out of real-world samples; they disdain relying on fancy equipment or chunks of other people's pop hits. "People need to learn how to bring the world into their studios," Daniel says, "instead of just having trade-show displays of what software can do." Matmos have already earned a devout fan in Bjork, who recruited the duo to collaborate on her upcoming disc, Vespertine, and its accompanying tour, which should follow the album's release. Schmidt and Daniel profess nothing but affection for the quirky Icelandic star. "She's not a robot," confirms Daniel. "She doesn't say, 'I want the snares right there.' It's more about the mood. The phrase she would use would be [adopting Bjork-like whisper]: 'I want it to be more primordial.' Or, 'Could you make it sound more like a plant?' Or, 'These beats are square, but I think here we need more triangles.' You gradually learn how to translate that into sounds." It's been an auspicious few years for the couple, who met in the early '90s when Daniel was dancing in a San Francisco club. Schmidt fondly recalls: "My come-on line was, 'Hey, you wanna learn how to use a studio?' While I was putting dollar bills in his underwear, someone told me, 'He plays electronic music, too.' I was like, 'Really?' It was an unbelievable combination. So I took him up to see the etchings, and things went really well. And nine years later, here we are."