Hakea is a laptop live PA duo based in the thriving Seattle electronic music community. Both hail from South King County where Matt Carthum (Matt One) experimented with tapes, records, and effects while Matt Turpin (Matt Zero) explored FM synthesis. A dozen years later the two would meet, discover common interests, and share a basement studio in Seattle. Their music is an ambient and beat driven electronic mark thickly layered with the sounds of analog and digital synthesis, drum programming, and treated vocals. Drawing from such influences as Dykehouse, Steve Reich, Aeroc, and Matmos Matt One and Matt Zero create ambient, improvisational dreamscapes incorporating synthesisers, sequencers, and anything they can get their hands on. Their ability to fuse melodic reverence, with sharp dissonance thrusts the mind, ear, and body into collective focus.
Hakea has spent the last year developing an impressive live presence. By incorporating a dedicated video artist, they create a moving visual and musical performance, drawing the audience into an open articulated message. In 2004, Hakea performed at the inaugural Decibel Festival In Seattle, the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival, various clubs, art venues and a three-mile long abandoned train tunnel.
They have recorded a 4 track ep and are currently working with local label Memex Records on future CD and DVD releases.
"Hakea's melodies and rhythms are uniformly smart, interesting, and imbued with unsappy emotion. At times, Hakea even recall the spacey abstractions and exploratory analog tonalities of German electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler, and Klaus Schulze. This active duo is further proof that Seattle's becoming an electronic-music hotbed." - Dave Segal The Stranger
