mat martin :
composer, visual artist and performer on fretted strings :
5-string banjo, guitar, tenor guitar, high-string guitar, mandolin, banjo ukulele, voice, noises
Influences
noises, nature, patterns, forms, growth, texture, animal and plant taxonomies, birdsong, humming fish, knocking walrus, singing whales...
harry partch, tom waits, george crumb, morton feldman, chris cundy, rhodri davies, plainsong, william byrd, j.s. bach, henry purcell, the notre dame school, francis poulenc, erik satie, gillian welch, mississipi john hurt, iron and wine, beck, bjork, boo hewerdine, curtis eller's american circus, georges brassens, john cage, kirsty mcgee, myshkin's ruby warblers, olivier messiaen, pete seeger, neill maccoll, radiohead, edward cowie, alexander goehr, les claypool, larry lalonde, marc ribot, david rawlings, neil hannon, seasick steve...
captain haddock, for style and vocabulary ; krazy kat, for general genius and inspired banjo playing ; hobbes (the tiger) for panache...
paul klee, cave art, kandinsky, leonardo da vinci, barnett newman, greasy pencils, textured papers, heterophonic structures, pebbles and string...
mat martin is an active and engaged freelance musician and visual artist based in manchester, working in composing for all kinds of spaces, in performing, and in mark-making. he enjoys performances around the world both as a composer and a player of fretted stringed instruments. he has become very involved with the fertile ground between music and the visual arts as a way of exploring the interfaces between the natural world and the processes involved in making work. in 2006 his piece single stone was selected for the british and international bass forum’s ‘one minute wonders’ project, and in 2007 his guitar quartet shadow musics was selected for the spnm shortlist.
mat has written music for several performers, including works for pete wareham (cairn), rhodri davies (fire dances and orrery for solo harp) and christopher cundy (totem i & prélude for bcl and percussion, ancient bone (totem ii) for solo bcl) which have been performed around the uk and in the united states. his graphic score pebble music (for any solo performer) has been performed several times throughout the uk by various performers and has cemented his interest and involvement in the improvised music scene. he is currently curating a project which will bring together over twenty interpretations of the four minute piece by improvisers based all over the world in a series of international concerts and recordings. both fire dances and pebble music were composed on commission for rhodri davies’ series of constellations concerts which have featured works from composers as diverse as michael parsons, laurence crane, katherine kontz and mieko shiomi. two of the four fire dances were premiered by davies at huddersfield university in march of 2007.
mat holds a PhD from his studies in composition with edward cowie and alexander goehr at dartington college of arts, along with a degree in music technology. his doctoral research has resulted in the development of a highly individual musical language which draws from his sketches and fieldwork in the natural sciences and his studies of visual art theory. all of his work draws in some way on an observed connection with processes in the natural world, and most of his recent work has explored the dynamic of open scoring and semi-improvised techniques as a means of making this connection. new pieces such as single stone for contrabass with optional piano accompaniment and cairn for quartet of instrument show the integration of these techniques as an important strand in the culmination of his musical interests to date.
mat has also been working as a performer and arranger with kirsty mcgee since the release of her second album in 2004, and has developed a reputation on the uk and international roots/acoustic music circuit as a sensitive and accomplished accompanist on fretted strings, enjoying excellent reviews in the specialist press. he has also been known to make appearances on stage with other friends such as karine polwart, boo hewerdine, truckstop honeymoon and chris cundy (guillemots/gannets), and has recorded sessions with others still, including an appearance on the brute chorus’ debut AA-side single ‘chateau/the cuckoo and the stolen heart’ (bumpman 45s, 2007).
the diversity of mat’s musical output is rooted strongly in the unorthodox training in both ‘high’ and popular art forms he has had over the years. he has a particular passion for american roots culture ; from old-time appalachian banjo picking to ‘beat’ type writers and musicians such as tom waits, harry partch and jack kerouac. this interest, which stems largely from his work as performer, has doubtless had a great influence on his attitude to simplicity and directness of expression in all forms of art.
‘a person with tremendous curiosity for ideas ; new forms, and new ways of threading together a series of musical ‘arguments’ and scenarios that already ‘speak’ of a mind that knows exactly what it wants to say, and how to say it’
- edward cowie
'very cool... the chet atkins of the banjo'
- neill maccoll
Tickets SELLING FAST! £7 adv avaliable from (more on the door): wegottickets.com seetickets.com Ticketline Picadilly Records
Grouper (US) has her latest – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill – of three albums on Type Records. She has also been involved in collaborative releases, contributing a track to Xiu Xiu’s Remixed & Covered and four tracks to a split release with Inca Ore. Her other contemporaries are Belong, Growing, Tim Hecker, Windy & Carl and Atlas Sound.
Jasper TX (Sweden), with a hefty back-catalogue of releases on labels such as Miasmah, and collaborations with buddy Machinefabriek, is an essential domestic appliance in the household of conceptual music. He is comparable to artists Fennesz, Sigur Ros, Múm and Tape.
Intricate and atmospheric songsmith, Danny Saul (UK) performs with different combinations of musicians, making each gig a unique event. His forthcoming release is "Harsh, Final", and he also performs with Greg Haines as Liondialer.
Fieldhead (UK) music delights in tape hiss, bleak landscapes and decaying analogue loops. He is also a member of The Declining Winter and Glissando. His debut album, "They Shook Hands for Hours" is released soon on Home Assembly.
Trespassers William (Seattle, US) are the duo of Matt Brown and Anna-Lynne Williams. "Subliminally sublime and pragmatically perfect, you would have to possess an ashtray for a heart not to feel this coursing through your soul" (DSD Music Magazine). A new EP, The Natural Order of Things, is set to be released on Gizeh Records. They will make a church performance with special guests.
Glissando (Sheffield, UK) “have the kind of atmosphere that can captivate and relax in equal measure- never before has tranquillity sounded so urgent. While track lengths of over 10 minutes may fail to hold the attention of the ADHD sufferers among us, with patience it plays like a majestic dream. And it's one you'll never want to wake up from." NME
Operations (Chris Anderson) is a Manchester based conceptual music producer and sound artist. He performs and records with an array of analog synths and effects, reel-to-reel tape and casette players, and guitars. Followers of Tim Hecker, Slowdive, Fennesz, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Stephen O'Malley, Type and 12K Records will surely nod in approval.
Svarte Greiner (Deaf Center/Miasmah/Type) from Norway explores deep into a dark, mysterious and disturbing universe. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Earth, Volcano the Bear, David Darling & Deathprod, the music is draped in Lynchian mysticism and horror film cinematics. "The music of Svarte Greiner is practically perfect. It's like that sound in our heads we've been imagining for ages but had never actually heard." - Type Records.
The Sight Below (Rafael Anton Irisarri/Miasmah/Immune) from the US draws as much on modern genre progenitors like Brian Eno, Robin Guthrie and My Bloody Valentine as it does from the more historic traditions in neo-classicism from Erik Satie and Olivier Messiaen. His album Glider has appeared on Thom Yorke's radar in making the Radiohead's lynchpin's top ten playlist.
His debut album Navigare soon to feature on the Miasmah label, Simon Scott (former Slowdive) is set to be a household name in conceptual music. Simon is the former Slowdive drummer, co-producer of Televise, producer of Seavault, and owner of KESH Recordings label.
Hello, we're playing as support for Nico Muhly at the Union Chapel this friday, Gavin Bryars String Quartet no 2 and some Purcell, will be nice! I have cheaper £6 tickets.
Featuring Fyfe Dangerfield (from Guillemots), Gannets posit an alternative jazz history in which 30's swing developed straight into a combined form of the free jazz and fusion movements, without any of the intervening decades.
'Gannets' Fyfe Dangerfield - keyboards + electronics Alex J Ward - clarinet Christopher Cundy - bass clarinet Dominic Lash - double bass Steve Noble - drums
HAPPY CHRISTMAS! Hope the festive season brings you good cheer, good friends, good wine, good music. (must be lots of money in Christmas songs?)
Been working on my photo site, hope it might be up soon? I have family coming to stay – expecting Giant monopoly apparently?... Fun Times! Best Paulinex
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