"When Good Hearts Break", my new record.

matta

Hey Guys,

Some of you may know that I used to be a performance musician, I spent years touring the length and breadth of SA and abroad.

In 2003 I came off the road and I switched to the other side of the glass and before you know it 10 years had passed without having recorded any of my own music.

In January this year I set myself the goal of working towards recording a new EP, as I started working through the songs the theme of love in various facets started coming through, found, lost, broken and restored, and so the EP is aptly titled "When Good Hearts Break".

Having worked with some major talent over the years I was able to rope in some great players, Barry Van Zyl on Drums, Shaun Johannes on Bass, Carl Wegelin on Electric Guitars and Ashton Gardener on Keys and Backing Vox.

My past 3 records have either engineered in part or in full by myself, this time around I wanted to approach things differently, to produce and arrange, but not record and handed the reigns over to David Langemann (Freshly Ground, Johnny Clegg etc). I was SUPER privileged to have my mentor mix the EP, Vance Powell, he's Jack White's engineer, responsible for the Grammy winning Raconteurs record as well as Jack's latest Blunderbuss.

I launched it without fanfare globally on iTunes on September 1st, exactly 10 years to the date I started working on my last EP.

The whole record is up on Soundcloud here if you want to take a listen,

I'll be launching it officially in mid-October with a couple CPT dates pending, a couple dates in NYC in November and a small coastal tour in December.

It feels good to be playing music again, it's been too long.

giggsy

Well done man, bookmarked it to have a listen, but all the best

Norman86

Sounds great!
Will have a listen tonight!
Good luck Matta!

PeteM

Well done Matt. All the best with your EP.

AlanRatcliffe

Sounds great Matt - I particularly liked This Might Be Love and The Light.

Mr-M

Wow - Vance Powell! ??? That's amazing. Can't wait to give it a listen. ?

Wormwood

Nice tremlo and KILLER fuzz on the 1st track

matta

Thanks Guys for the support and kudos!

Mr T wrote Wow - Vance Powell! ??? That's amazing. Can't wait to give it a listen. ?

Yes, I used to work with/for him in Nashville, at the time he was chief engineer at Blackbird, had a couple Grammy's for artists like Jars of Clay, but later went on to become Jack's engineer and do records for a host of over artists. We traded services for gear, I'm actually flying to New York in November to deliver a custom valve compressor I build him as out trade exchange, to be used on future rock records.

Wormwood, that Fuzz is my Fuzzsilla, Carl played and I was moving the knobs int real-time into an old 57' Fender Tweed Champ, the trem is an old vintage EHX Pulsar.

Cheers

Matt

Big-G

Well Matta, I haven't listened to the finished article through a decent system yet, but when I heard your 'rough' pre mix at your place, it sounded good enough, even through the Bose PA system! If Vance has made it sound even better than that, then we're in for a treat! ?

Good luck with the tour and everything, and if you need a 'live sound' guy to man your desk as you do gigs, give me a shout!

Regards
G!

Mr-M

matta wrote Yes, I used to work with/for him in Nashville, at the time he was chief engineer at Blackbird, had a couple Grammy's for artists like Jars of Clay, but later went on to become Jack's engineer and do records for a host of over artists. We traded services for gear, I'm actually flying to New York in November to deliver a custom valve compressor I build him as out trade exchange, to be used on future rock records.

As it happens I mentioned your EP to Paul Martin this afternoon and he told me about a lot of this. Very cool. ?

I actually found two of the tracks to be quite reminiscent of Jars of Clay (The Light and A Broken Life). Not sure it's intentional or not, but I am a JOC fan, so I enjoyed them. ? In general, I like the songs & the arrangements and the production sounds very good. Hope this EP does well for you.

Psean

Well done Matta! Great stuff.