I heard the Velvet Underground and formed a band. Nothing else made any sense: simple as that.
psychotronic sounds & negative vibes: building my tomb one brick at a time: I don’t have your story, you can’t have mine x
Brighton UK
Sonic Shocks album notes (track by track)
V13: eight albums that changed my life “from epic classical to groundbreaking heavy metal, Matt Finucane’s record collection is as eclectic as the music on his new album”
Viking In The Wilderness “a simmering subtle darkness”
Music in Belgium “still scandalously ignored and deserves a much wider exposure”
Sonic Shocks “powerful collection of tracks […] and as always it’ll be intriguing to see where he goes next”
Trust The Doc on Envy The Birds “an excellent and slightly trippy track”
Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ “sees Matt push beyond his previous limits and embrace a more adventurous, exploratory approach, without losing any of his distinctive character”
Muso Muso interview “Maybe I’m better off as a complete cult”
Plugged in Brighton on Something That Can Help “It’s a cliche to talk about singers who wear their hearts on their sleeves but in Matt’s case, you can add all the other major organs”
Plugged in Brighton reviews Hectic Night “Matt as a performer takes many shapes and guises and this iteration is as strong as any of them […] A troubled troubadour running in and out of dark alleyways”
The Ringmaster Review “In our experience every outing with Matt Finucane has proven an absorbing and rousing adventure in some rich level of degree but The Seizure might just be his finest proposition yet; in fact no question, it is”
Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ “a singular artistic voice in a sea of sameness”
Trust The Doc “mixes some joyously dissonant Post-Punk guitars with a growling punky style of singing that is oddly Dylanesque while also recalling David Byrne in a mash-up with Can […] Engaging, energetic and edgy”
Plugged In Brighton “The familiar is twisted and distorted. Music comes from the shadows. Sonic exploration in every sense. Recommended”
Sonic Shocks “a great use of honesty throughout – essentially this is another EP from Matt that needs to be heard by more people”
embracing the discord: The Ringmaster Review interview “audience approval doesn’t really figure – communication’s the important thing […] It’s not like I’m up there sacrificing a live deer with my teeth every night”
White Room Reviews “still nice and raw in terms of sound […] you can almost float in a post-punk style”
Music in Belgium “a free electron of the English rock scene, or should we say folk rock or psychedelic rock because there is something for everyone with this unusual character […] who really does not want to finish at the top of the supermarket gondola where you can buy his discs between slices of ham and dishwashing”
Devolution Magazine “There are plenty of rules and expectations out there to keep us in our little boxes. Matt Finucane has broken out of his. Good luck putting him back”
GBHBL track by track album notes “I once had an idea for a live show at the Brighton Fringe Festival but couldn’t work out how to do it without somebody getting killed”
GBHBL interview “I ended up in Brighton, like so many drug burn-outs and rejects from the capital, and got my act together”
The Ringmaster Review “the troubadour of disharmony, back to confront, provoke, and captivate in his unique way. A one of a kind proposition and Vanishing Island an inimitable offering in his own creative adventure”
The Sound Lab interview “This vaguely sinister woman once said to me, we all choose our suffering. There is ugly suffering and there is beautiful suffering. You, I think, are somewhere in between”
Brighton Source on the Perilous Seat single: “strong and well-structured, with a memorable and distinctive sound”
White Room Reviews (Netherlands) “a special trip in the dark […] to make the listener dreamily listen to him from very far away from this earth. A colourful artist. Delicious”
Plugged in Brighton “confirms Matt’s status as a musical adventurer”
Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ “it’s a stroke of genius, and it’s by no means isolated […] tidy hooks and imaginatively-crafted moments of atmosphere and even pangs of emotional depth […] espouses the spirit of DIY without sounding cack”
Full Circle (Belgium) “Very enjoyable and well made album throughout by an individual and fascinating artist”
House of Prog “odd and eerie production […] this is an album worth investigating”
Stencil Magazine issue 54 “makes use of an outlandish mix of electronic and acoustic […] there is something to be said for anyone who can manage to blend such a collection of influences”
Big Issue North interview “this little honesty nugget could poison my future”
Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ on Disquiet: “It’s real. It’s sincere. It’s honest. And he’s landed some decent tunes”
Music In Belgium on Disquiet: “ce mini-album […] place avantageusement un artiste imaginatif dans les hauts étages de notre estime”
The RingMaster Review on Disquiet: “a mix of challenge and seduction but most of all a fascination”
Blues Magazine (Netherlands) on Disquiet: “Het is altijd prettig dat er artiesten zijn, die gewoon hun eigen, eigenzinnige, gang gaan”
Overdrive interview “will the industry terminally decline into some kind of jazz museum?”
Sonic Shocks on Disquiet: “if you like it more unconventional then this mixture of indie and psychedelic will work wonderfully”
Echoes and Dust – Under The Influence “you can feel the medium-sized music venue, the beer and amphetamines, the trip to the hotel in the van afterwards, a bleak British provincial landscape at night”
Plugged In Brighton on Disquiet: “a singular voice sharing dispatches from the margins that should be heard by more”
Mass Movement vlog – My Life In Music
Sonic Shocks interview “my feet were floating a couple of inches above the floor and everything was blue round the edges”
Whisperin and Hollerin interview “I got a lot of abuse growing up in England with an Irish surname, so it feels good to parade it now”
Riff Media interview “I’d be seduced by power […] my hands coated with blood and my soul shrunken to a burnt piece of popcorn, then end my days in front of a firing squad”
AltCorner interview – Stories Behind The Songs “it’s always fun to play live and feel a freezing fog of dread billow out into the room”
Gig review by David Page from the Real Music Club Newsletter, July ’18 “skillfully created a tense, bleak atmosphere which unsettled the audience. Alone with his acoustic guitar, and immaculately turned out in black shirt and trousers, Matt cut a stark, isolated figure on stage. He delivered his tense, poignant songs in an assertive, commanding tone, laced with an edge of menace, that evoked ‘The man who sold the world’ era Bowie, and Lou Reed’s Berlin album”
Monolith Cocktail, 31 May ’18 “His latest exercise in primal scream therapy (though crooning would be a more apt description) is the quasi-Neu!-meets-Faust-meets-Pixies grinding turmoil Ugly Scene EP. Perhaps among his best releases yet […] filled with soul and melody; an experimental EP of resignation and heartache […] has seldom sounded better and more imaginative”
Indie Band Guru on Ugly Scene: “these aren’t songs that are intended for casual, easy listening; it takes attention and demands time, but Finucane’s masterful craft of his unique sound is very much worth the effort”
Plugged In Brighton on Ugly Scene: “the songs are art rock without being limp and inhabit a weird version of our world […] Matt is raging against whatever is there” – and 10 Questions (an interview)