MRM (Minimal Resource Manipulation) Recordings is a DIY label that I set up in 2006 to release my own compositions digitally and as handmade CDrs and cassettes.
I consider myself a non-musician. I don’t approach my art from an academic standpoint, having had no formal training. Instead the terms arranger, collector or curator might better describe my practice in sonic and visual art.
Using an old computer running cracked software and without a mixing desk or any outboard gear my sonic explorations use sounds from field recordings I’ve made as the building blocks of these ‘constructions’.
Under various guises (Platform, Seven Hour Germ, Shaded Monocle, Fertile Structure) I’ve produced all but two of the thirty releases on the label. The music deals in abstraction and loops, shifting textures and timbres, sometimes with beats, sometimes without. My more recent work leans more toward the practice of sound art, with fewer ‘musical’ elements. These pieces are sonic collages that twist the source material into disorienting new structures and forms.
I’ve also released music on other labels such as Midnight Circles (Germany), Epicene (US), Cryoworks (Ukraine), Escala (Spain), Smallfish and Suburbs of Hell (UK) and The Unexplained Sounds Group (Italy). I’ve been played on Zoviet France’s ‘A Duck in a Tree’ show on Resonance FM a number of times and the British Library have also recently added the MRM back catalogue to their sound archive.
I also currently play drums in several London based bands; Crumbling Ghost, Newts, Smallgang, Slowgun, Splintered Man and Russell and the Wolf Choir and, in the 90’s, Huge Baby.

mrmrecordings.bandcamp.com

Selected press quotes:
‘There is a feel about these tracks of the juxtaposition of discarded cans and milk bottle tops with the remote immensity of aluminium-plated corridors on deserted, imaginary space stations, especially on “Thoracic Drop”. There are reminders, too, of Autechre, of all the beat generators once used to entertain on dancefloors now operating for their own sake in a space in which humanity has been notionally dispensed with.’ – The Wire
‘Think Fennesz but on quite a mellow day; such as I am experiencing right now, and Atkins plays exactly the right soundtrack for such a beautiful mellow day.’ –Vital Weekly
‘The bristling electricity of May’s looped scrawl and scribble is matched with the feral, almost tidal motion of Platform’s textures and solitary keyboard strokes. Each and every one of the discs twenty minutes possesses clarity in its restraint and an astringency and head-rinsing litheness of touch that is almost cleansing.’ – Cyclic Defrost
‘I feel somewhat gratified for having been sent one of the 50 copies of this off-line, brilliantly conceived work.’ – Touching Extremes
‘'Only Sadness Remains' is a super dramatic closer, with epic and sweeping melancholic electronics. A fantastic closer to yet another fine release from this totally underrated producer.’ – Norman Records
‘At times this record is like a big blanket that you wrap yourself in, at others it’s disquieting and suffocating, but in that good way, like the aforementioned David Lynch, the sort of uncomfortable you’re almost willing to ‘endure’. Like the best minimal recordings it’s extremely evocative both in its subtle and more vividly realised moments.’ – God is in the TV
‘This is brilliant, there's a real brooding menace present in each of the five songs with their repetitive piano loops and skittering percussion.’ – Collective Zine
‘Clattering sounds and percussion give way to absolutely gorgeous, ethereal chords half way through and then remain until the very end. Well put together, expertly produced, full of fascinating sounds and textures. MRM delivers once again. Superb.’ – Smallfish Records
‘Although Matthew Atkins’ Fifty Three Loops is certainly not without allure, it never settles for easy drone tropes, managing to avoid abrasive noise and immersive ambiance, committing itself fully to the goal stated at the outset: Just do what you are, in order to hear what you think. If only life were so simple.’ – Fluid Radio

‘This quiet and unassuming release is another example of the whisperer proving the most interesting voice in the room.’ – Sonomu.net
‘This neat little CDR features Platform reconfiguring the percussive subtlety of one Paul May, in a release that, from the outset, grabs the attention, and never lets go until the final flourish.’ – White Line Editions