Matthew & Me’s new EP Startpoint is a hotbed of soaring instrumentation and epic soundscapes that take you on an explorative journey. After perfecting their craft for over half a decade, the songwriting pair of Mattew Board and Lucy Fawcett were signed by innovative record label Beatnik this year and have just completed a short UK tour to support the recent release. I caught the band after their headline show at the Rialto Theatre.
Can you give us a brief history of the band and how it was formed?
We live in Totnes and originally met at uni at Dartington College of arts, studied music there and then stubbornly have stuck to a path of music-making ever since. We have released a couple of singles – ‘Kitsune’ and ‘Patterns’, then our Startpoint EP this year.
How would you describe your music?
We're into exploring dynamic range, from rich layers to more sparse arrangement. We're also interested in trying to incorporate and combine samples, synths and electronic moments which we'd like to explore further in future work. We both love music that you can really get locked into, in a trance-like state so we want to bring elements of that into what we do as well. that said, we like a good pop song so it's a challenge to try and roll all those things into one.
Talk us through the new EP Startpoint, how did you go about the writing and recording process for each of the tracks?
We wrote loads of rough demos after summer last year then played them all to Chris Bond and his brother Bear, who produced and engineered the EP respectively. Between us all we chose the ones we felt we wanted to pursue and recorded them at Startpoint on the SW coast of Devon. At this point the process became totally collaborative, it just flowed, we try hard not to overthink it now and just play. The landscape of East Prawl helped too, a pretty inspiring atmospheric place down by the sea. The whole process of being in session with the Bond brothers was ace. Lots of late nights and being immersed in synth worlds and having fun trying ideas out.
What can we expect from future releases?
Hopefully we will continue in the direction of Startpoint. We've written around a dozen new tracks which we plan to start working on in December with Chris, would be great to look towards making an LP in 2017 but we'll have to see how we go.
Musically we're just developing our own sound and focussing on the things about music that we love, so we'll be looking to take our time. In giving ourselves the space to reflect at every point we're likely to be more content with the finished work. It's easy to feel like you need to rush things nowadays, so it's quite important to remind ourselves that there isn't actually any reason to apply a timeframe to making a body of work, especially if you want the end result to be something that will endure.
Can you pinpoint the influences behind your music?
Matt has always liked Scandinavian output, múm, Samaris, Bjork, Sigur Rós. He's also into Mogwai, This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins anything Liz Fraser was involved with. Lucy grew up in Sheffield so was interested in the synth pop scene there and played in a few bands growing up. Lots of our influences crossover, especially now, but we both definitely came from quite different musical backgrounds.
If you could work with any artist, who would it be and what would they bring to?Matthew & Me?
That's a really tricky question – there's tonnes of amazing bands, producers and DJs that we would kill to collaborate with but not sure where to start. We're firm believers in paths crossing when they're meant to so you never know. Also in the future we would love to compose music for film, that would be cool.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
We are both quite eclectic with our musical taste and Matt works in a record shop so we check out a lot of different stuff coming through the shop all the time.
Currently: LNZNDRF, Warpaint, Blood Orange, One – BE.
What has been a musical eye-opener and how has it affected you?
Working with Chris on the EP was such an eye opener for us, his whole approach to music making was really inspiring.
Is there a particular ethos that drives you as a band?
Not giving up! We juggle a lot of jobs and freelance work around being in Matthew & Me, so our goal is to tip the balance to spending the majority of our time on music and a bit less time on the other stuff. Self sufficiency as a band would be nice in the future.and creatively trying to push ourselves all the time.
What has been your relationship with the city of Brighton, how do you find the city and are there any future gigs planned?
We've always been inspired by the people and city, the ethos and modern thinking is inspiring, Anna from Melting Vinyl and Chris and the Bleeding Hearts guys are perfect examples of people who put creativity first. The audience at the show this week were really respectful of the music, totally no chatter.hopefully we shall play again in Brighton but nothing in the diary right now!
We have partied a fair bit in Brighton too over the years and it kind of feels like a bigger version of Totnes to us, so like home from home!
What are your plans for the next 12 months?
We have got a home studio set up now which will enable us to start recording new stuff off the clock. So we'll be making lots more music in the next 12 months, hopefully get out and about playing gigs and maybe move to Brighton (laughs).
Paul Hill
Website: matthewandme.co.uk
Facebook: facebook.com/matthewandmemusic
Twitter: twitter.com/MatthewAndMe