back in the studio / interview
20 Dec ’24
Back at Third Circle Recordings the last couple of days for another – and final – blast of noise and energy… Project complete. There may or may not be two releases coming off the back of this next year, I couldn’t possibly comment (largely because I don’t know for sure yet).
There’s an interview I did to support the recent EP with The Harvest Network, here – like all of them at the moment, it features truths, half-truths and myths, and also that photo by Charlotte Horton of me onstage with blood running down my face (and yes, once again for those who asked: it was real). I like that photo.
Happy Xmas and all that shit x
EP launch gig: verdict
That was wonderful: people came, people enjoyed. Performance felt great. I’m half deaf now and on a massive adrenaline comedown, but it was inexpressibly worth it.
Thanks Eyeless Records for arranging the night and taking a chance on me – check out my EP here if you haven’t already.
Thanks everyone who showed up, also Patients & R Dyer for great sets. I can’t believe how well it went.
Onward x
EP released: ‘Bang Bang Exorcism’ out 27 Sept on Eyeless Records
Bandcamp / Spotify / Amazon / Apple Music
Bang bang – it’s here:
Eyeless Records releases my EP today. This is what they say…
Matt Finucane’s music throbs with intensity and purpose. Arcs of feed back angular guitar lines and a thick reverberated tone make for a moorish and delectable sound. Barney Guys propulsive rhythms keep the musics forward momentum recalling Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) at his most elastic. This 6 track album is positively fizzing and popping with energy and style. Step inside! In Matt’s words:
“Bang Bang Exorcism is a loud, raw emotional catharsis captured in Portslade, of all places.
Themes of isolation, mental disturbance and the ghosts and shadows of the past vented in neogoth psychodrama, big feedback and weirdness: it’s absolutely unholy, and a true exorcism on record.”
It’s a download & limited run cassette in sexy brick red. Enjoy x
Released today: Run With the Freaks
26 July ’24: Run With The Freaks is released by Eyeless Records on all streaming platforms. The EP it’s taken from will follow in late September… Enjoy x
Safe House 7
played so obnoxious on this. It felt great
Safe House Brighton returns with a seventh LP of improvised music – I’m on three tracks, 7), 8) & 16), playing treated recordings, rockist guitar (listen above) & ambient doom riffs, respectively. Full LP here.
I’ve been on several of these now, a project that began in the solitary madness of lockdown and was too powerful to die. This will probably be my last go-round – but I haven’t decided yet.
Here’s the blurb:
A system of 18 trios were created, whereby no one player could play with the same person more than once. Cards with the 18 players names on were shuffled and depending on the order they were drawn, each player was given a number. These 18 musicians sent in a recording of themselves playing, between 4 and 6 minutes long. This solo performance/recording was sent to the player “below” them to play along with. This recorded duet was then sent to the player “below” them to play along with.
Players were invited to record whatever they wanted, whilst listening to and accompanying the track “above”.
The final trio of each unique group is what you are listening to here!
Previous LPs:
Digest, discuss, disgust
xx
Safehouse 6 – an improv epic
There’s a 6th installment of the ongoing Safehouse album project (and I’m on it). This is another free improv epic, part of a vast unfolding tale that started in lockdown… Here’s what I wrote about the first one I played on, shortly after the world changed. Track above features some gleefully horrible guitar from me, pitted against two other musicians, while the entire album can be heard on Bandcamp, here.
live vid! (London, Feb ’22)
A rough & ready phone vid of the recent gig at Biddle Bros in London, courtesy Sad House Daddy. It captures the atmosphere – my guitar’s out of tune, the lunatics are slamdancing, the music’s very loud: it’s the full set. Enjoy!
Can’t Cheat Karma! Washing Up Time! (2 new releases)
I’ve got 2 new pieces of music on 2 different releases:
There’s Can’t Cheat Karma’s benefit album for Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project:
“BUCFP provides practical support, education, advice and much more to the unemployed and those in poor living conditions, benefit claimants, the unwaged, pensioners, families and those on low incomes.
Download it, tell all yr friends, send us money. All profits go to BUCFP.”
&
Washing Up Time, released by Spirit of Gravity:
– The first features shitloads of punk & punk-adjacent bands like Austerity, Idle Bones, Ferox Fucking Ferox, Mules & others, plus a new track of mine.
– The second’s a compilation from Brighton’s foremost experimental electronic collective (SoG, celebrating 21 years of promoting gigs). There’s 36 tracks of foaming noise terror, including an instrumental from me, all based around a recording of Nil By Nose washing up.
I urge you to check them out on the links above, buy them & play them obsessively – both are out now.
EDIT: just heard my track from Washing Up got played on Lost Property‘s Totally Radio show, The Damping Wells – listen here…
new Safehouse album: MNO (plus gig pix)
Another improv album from Safehouse Brighton – I’m on tracks 1, 17 & 19. This is the fifth in a series of remote collaborations started over lockdown (am on every one except the first), so I’ll skip the blurb; enough to say it’s a big listen and a deep dive into freeform sound adventure. It’s also possibly the lightest, most accessible volume so far; who knows what’ll happen when we reach the end of the alphabet…
That’s one extreme, so here’s the reverse – from the Rossi Bar gig in November showing the other end of what I do:
1) MF – 2) La Pequena Em – 3) Austerity – 4) Austerity/Gulls (photos by Jimmy Guest)
It’s been a blast, somewhat against expectation given how bleak things looked in January – hope to do a lot more next year, and that everyone’s 2022 is utterly fucking fab.
x
new album: ‘To The Outer World’ released 23 Apr ’21
Bandcamp / Spotify / Amazon / Apple Music
It’s here… New album comes out today – a full-length studio recording with the band and various guest musicians, and some of my best songs yet: hope you enjoy (you can stream it on any of the links above). xx
“Envy The Birds” out 26 Mar ’21
Spotify / Apple Music / Amazon
The 3rd and final single from my forthcoming album To The Outer World releases today… It’s a longer track (5mins, which is a lot for a guitar band), goes to some interesting places without losing the groove.
Did an interview recently with Muso Muso magazine – read it here. I don’t normally swear that much – answering questions about my music, anyway – but seeing it out there in someone else’s font, it seems a bit excessive. Didn’t register it at the time, for whatever reason – my mood was fine, pulse and brainwaves normal… maybe it just looks worse to me, I dunno. See what you think.
EDIT: Just to add, Graham Duff’s Mixtape on Slack City for 24 March played “A Friend From Far Away” – listen to the whole show here.
“A Friend From Far Away” out 26 Feb ’21
Bandcamp / Spotify / Amazon / etc
The 2nd single from my new album’s out today (LP to follow Fri 23 April). It’s available from all the usual online sources, but I’d recommend the Bandcamp version, which comes with several extra tracks – a stealth EP, even. As before, it was recorded punishingly loud at Church Road Studios with Julian Tardo – hope you enjoy.
Oh yeah, here’s another no-budget DIY video to go with it, what I done all by myself (meant to make something a bit more extravagant this time, but lockdown II squashed that idea)…
“Something That Can Help” out 29 Jan ’21
Spotify / Apple Music / Amazon
First of three singles – next one follows in about a month. This one’s my last word on a pet subject – a focused, direct guitar number (another last word, possibly). Hope you enjoy.
new single, Jan ’21
Got an album out in April, and in the run-up to release am putting out 3 singles. The first, Something That Can Help, is due Friday 29 Jan. It’s been aired on Dexter Bentley’s Hello Goodbye Show on Resonance 104.4 FM – listen here… & Radio Reverb’s Pete Jones Show – here.
There’s also a review up on Plugged in Brighton: “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”.
True, that. Have an advance listen, see if you agree.
Safehouse: G.H.I (another album!)
Those crazy Safehouse cosmonauts have done it again: a new collection of trios – including me, on three tracks – working long-distance on some free improv musical collaborations. (This is the third so far… I’m also on the previous album, D.E.F.*)
Hadn’t expected to update again so soon, with no gigs or anything like that on the horizon – of course – but hopefully this is a sign of life resuming… We’ll find out.
*It makes sense (read the blurb on Bandcamp)…
germ-free studio session: video
So what’s it like, doing live tracking in the age of Covid? Here’s some footage from Church Road Studios a couple of days ago…
Masks, hand sanitizer and tape on the floor – also, I’m not allowed to touch an amp or mic stand myself, which makes it feel like we’re filming at the BBC in about 1970 (quite fun, actually).
These are preliminary recordings for an album due out sometime next year… not yet clear exactly when… The first track featured is called Schooling, the second’s Derision (which is meant to be about 4min of freeform… we got nearly half an hour, so I look forward to the edit).
It’s a strange new situation all right – but not impossible, thankfully.
Safehouse: the album (free improv lockdown explorations)
A surprise lockdown bonus, courtesy Safehouse… I’m on 3 tracks (10, 12 & 13 – guitar, synth and effects, respectively), but I’d recommend the full immersion. Here’s the blurb:
A system of 23 trios were created, whereby no one player could play with the same person more than once. Cards with the 23 players names on were shuffled and depending on the order they were drawn, each player was given a number. These 23 musicians sent in a recording of themselves playing, between 4 and 6 minutes long. This solo performance/recording was sent to the player “below” them to play along with. This recorded duet was then sent to the player “below” them to play along with.
Players were invited to record whatever they wanted, whilst listening to and accompanying the track “above”
The final trio of each unique group is what you are listening to here!
(Full list of personnel on Bandcamp… Thanks to Iain Paxon for dreaming it up/organising.)
This was lots of fun to be involved with – which, at the moment, is the most important thing: something worthwhile to focus on, and some form of connection, however remote. And it sounds marvellous, possibly.
Resonance FM session, 16 Nov
pic(s) by Dexter Bentley
Here’s the live session & interview we did for Dexter Bentley’s HelloGoodbye Show on Resonance FM – it’s very close to the start of the show, and is four uninterrupted songs (including a brand new number) followed by some chat:
(That was our afternoon. Later on, we went to Biddle Bros in E5 for a very loud gig. An ideal day.)
BBC session free download
Here’s a free download, moved across to Bandcamp from Soundcloud.
It’s a BBC Introducing: South session with my previous live band (including links by DJ Melita Dennett – these were included in the original files they sent me afterward, and add a pleasing sense of the captured moment).
Live-wise, my next gig’s in Brighton at Campbell Rd Studios, for these guys:
Feel free to pig out on all of the above.
LILITH – Oct 30th – new single out today
My 2nd single released on The Animal Farm comes out today. It can be found on Amazon, Spotify, my Bandcamp site & others. I’ll also have a few promo CDs on hand at the Halloween gig I’m playing.
live session, Radio Reverb TONIGHT
Mon Oct 12th: am playing a live session for Pete Jones on Radio Reverb 97.2FM tonight, which can be heard on the wireless or streamed live here. It goes out from 6-8PM, with a repeat on Friday at noon (see above). I’ll be doing songs old & new, and probably chatting a bit.
new(ish) Brighton bands I like
yeah, this is my fucking “critic” face
Just for a change, and because everyone loves a pundit, I fancy writing about local bands encountered recently who didn’t make me want to puke.
Well, not so much “writing” like a reviewer, more listing them in no particular order, without spoon-feeding – so you can discover their brilliance for yourself. Also, lists are how we communicate nowadays:
Man Ray Sky – incredible layered guitar/electro soundscapes and vistas
Lutine – spooky anti-folk from the dark, dark ages (their debut gig in a church was stunning)
Thee Bald Knobbers – absolutely indescribable. This link is live footage. It’s terrifying.
Shonalika Tilak – a superb singer with some extremely dark, absorbing music
Stevie and the Nobodies – crunchy guitars, smart tunes, humour
Prissy Lips – utter fucking exotic trash glam
Plurals – drones and transcendence
Broken Ears – punchy, hard-edged acoustica (fairly new outfit, but already very strong)
& the marvellous Junkboy
An interesting mixture, and that’ll do for now – apologies to any I’ve missed out, although doubtless there’ll be more… There were three very good acts at my recent launch gig, for example – check them out too. In fact, check em all out.
Hot TV action
Seasonal fear! Here’s a new song from me at 6min26 called Dead Men Sing Us To Our Rest – very apt for the dark, hushed mortuary time of year it was shot and broadcast…
This is episode 4 of StageUp Unplugged, which went out on local TV & Virgin 159 just before Xmas, now archived to their Youtube channel. Do check it out – there’s other good stuff on there, plus it’s an interesting and worthwhile outfit: a Social Enterprise involved in mental health.
More news (and hopefully, gigs) soon.
