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lick, varied production – under his own name and the aliases Jabberjaw, False and Audion – relentless touring, and the backing of Ann Arbor’s super-industrious Ghostly International label have made 27-year-old Texan Matthew Dear part of electronic music’s elite. Recording on Perlon, M_nus and Ghostly offshoot Spectral Sound, he spans a multitude of sub genres, none accurately capturing his style. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by agenda-setting music title XLR8R in 2004, his music was described as “interesting and sexy” by Q, and even America’s mainstream media realised something was stirring; after 2003’s [u]Leave Luck to Heaven[/i] LP and its ‘little brother’, 2004’s Backstroke, Matthew featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone. This Audion project follows last October’s Suckfish LP (“pure baby-making genius,” XLR8R; “a landmark release,” Mixmag).
"The pseudonyms are mainly to organise my own head. Electronic music, as I’m sure everybody knows, can take so many different avenues and there can be so many different genres within genres. Audion came out of a need I was finding in live shows to play harder and more aggressive music. I was just getting a little… I wouldn’t say bored with subtle, minimal stuff, but I realised if you added hard and powerful moments people could lose themselves a lot easier. I think it’s easier for the listener to know what they’re getting into as well. If somebody goes to a shop and they’re looking for a new record, I wouldn’t wanna confuse them if they bought Audion thinking it was gonna sound like my other stuff." – Matthew Dear
On Fabric 27, Matthew has pushed the generally established limits of a compilation, taking parts from various tracks and splicing them together to make new ones. Continually shifting in shape, packed with polyrhythms and drenched in detail, it does many things at once, warping dimensions and growing in personality with every listen. Full of unexpected sounds, recurring themes and ingenious ideas, it moves from subtle through crazed to ecstatic. Like most things it’s best in the dark, though Matthew recommends playing it loudly in a car. Techno was once a faceless music designed to hit you over the head. Now, small-scale superstars like Matthew Dear make it to seep into your subconscious. And like anything designed to shift your reality, it can be highly addictive.
"This mix was a labour of love. The club holds such a high place in my heart and I tried to capture the different corridors a listener can take when there. Sometimes you will hear harder music in one room and walk across the club to another room for deeper, more twisted music. I wanted the mix to reflect the diversity of a Saturday night at Fabric." – Matthew Dear
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