Graham Duff’s Mixtape & random pixxx
My new track Eerie World got a play on Graham Duff’s Mixtape (Totally Radio) for 13 April – listen to the programme here – good company I’m in.
And here, just because, are some recent live pix – they have that blurry nightmare feel I so 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 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.
So… 2020
Well, there goes 2020: thank fuck.
I won’t labour the point – this year can only be an improvement…
Anyway, finished an album which I plan to release mid-2021 – probably my best yet – and a few other bits and pieces, so on a personal level there’s little to complain about. Also, NBTMusic Radio voted The Seizure 195 in the top 400 albums of 2020, which is gratifying. Have a listen, see what you think. Already feels like a long, long time since it came out (end of 2019, actually, so about a century in covid years)… I’m confident the new stuff’s even better, and hope to get it in front of you soon.
Nothing doing yet on the gig front, obviously – did a few streamed things on facebook & youtube in the first half of last year, which went well enough… I guess, it’s hard to tell when you’re serenading your phone… but it’s a bit too message in a bottle, too inhuman, for my taste. (And without the bit at the end of the night where you pack up and leave the venue, it’s really hard to wind down afterward – all that adrenaline and nowhere to go: you’re already home, amid the too-familiar objects. And since I don’t get drunk anymore, no way to zone out. Ah well.) Laying plans for when things start to move again, though. Meanwhile, do check out the Music Venue Trust’s Save Our Venues campaign – be good to have somewhere left to play!
To better days
x
New EP “The Seizure” released 8 Nov ’19
Bandcamp / Amazon / Apple Music / Spotify
This EP marks a new departure: if you can make out the text on the back cover, you’ll see there’s an actual band involved. We recorded three tracks from our current set, pretty much live in the studio – barring vocals and a few guitar overdubs – then the final track’s a collaboration with Mik Hanscomb (Junkboy) in a lighter vein.
For more detail, I can’t really do better than the RingMaster Reviews interview I did recently, which covers everything…
Or there’s a review on Plugged in Brighton – “The familiar is twisted and distorted. Music comes from the shadows. Sonic exploration in every sense. Recommended.”
A good end to an interesting year!
(Except it’s not over yet – there’s a live session on Resonance FM to come, among other things…)
x
new EP due 8 Nov ’19
pre-order on Bandcamp here
This is the first set of tracks I’ve recorded with the band – at Church Road Studio here in Brighton, earlier this year – loud and (pretty much) live. There’s also an acoustic song featuring Mik Hanscomb on 12-string guitar: you get the whole spectrum in this EP’s 20min run-time.
It’s available in all the usual online places from 8th Nov, but you can hear a preview of the longest, strangest track on the player above.
New album “Vanishing Island” released 3 May ’19
Bandcamp (includes bonus material) / Amazon / Apple Music / Spotify
Yes, that title’s a dig at Brexit, but there are no overt protest songs this time round: these are complex emotions, for complex times… The kind of feelings that don’t even have names – but you know them when they hit home.
I’m very happy with this one, and hope it’s as enjoyable a listening experience as it was to make.
gig / studio session / new single: pix
So the gig went well…
…and three days later, we went into the studio to record as a band – which also went very well (more on that later)…
…but meanwhile, there’s a new single coming out next month:
Due 8 March, accompanied by a video (one of my no-budget, lo-fi specials) – link to follow.
…
new EP “Disquiet” released 19 Oct ’18
Bandcamp (includes bonus material) / Amazon /Apple Music / Spotify / Resonate
Here’s the follow-up to Ugly Scene (released earlier this year).
Where that one was… well, ugly… this is the mirror opposite. It’s mellow, but be warned: the tracks get freakier as it progresses. Again, the clue’s in the title. Enjoy x
new EP “Ugly Scene” released 11 May ’18
Bandcamp (includes bonus material) / Amazon / Apple Music / Spotify
Not Too Far
The Wrong Side
Ugly Man
Damn Storyteller
City Consolation
Out today: the loudest and most obnoxious set of recordings I’ve done in quite a while – it felt like that kind of time again. The follow-up, hopefully due later this year, is already finished and takes a different angle… it’s called Disquiet. But for now, hope you enjoy these dispatches from the feedback frontier x
“spins and spins to weave a heavy and complex sonic web” – indiebandguru.com
NO POSITIVE VIBES!!! (a proposal)
we’ve all been there, right?
I’m thinking of starting my own regular music/performance event here in Brighton.
There’s a lot of smug, cosy, middle-of-the-road bullshit for grownup children – and very little that’s genuinely got any darkness or challenge to it. Something has to be done, and soon. Therefore, I propose:
(Although I back-pedalled later on the “we don’t want yr money” bit, when someone – quite rightly – pointed out that making it free was, in its own way, just as blithely bourgeois as the stuff I was railing against… and meant the bands couldn’t get a share of the door. I stand corrected… And from now on, you pay!)
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.
a new lyrics video: see here!
This is the lyrics video to forthcoming single In The Evil Empire, due to be released on The Animal Farm in 2014.
Scrutinize it.
