Matthew Shaw "Seatown" Excerpt by apollolaan

…according to our Phil on 26 January 2012.

Matthew Shaw continues his tour of darn sarf where he goes to a place, soaks in the vibe and then creates a piece of music based on his experiences there. Nice idea actually, and I did thoroughly enjoy his Lanreath CD. Seatown is a tiny place just south of Chideock in West Dorset and there Matthew spent a week in a cottage eating pasties, playing with fossils and making this lovely thing. Bowed guitar and phonography (whatever that is… I hope it’s not rude…) are the sounds on offer and you end up with a very nautical sounding album. The bowed guitar sounds lush over the drones and waves of blustery sea noises and wind sounds. It is just one 33 minute track and the bowed guitar makes it quite mantra-like as it’s very repetitive but it helps take you on your journey to Seatown. Hand numbered of 50 copies! Lovely!!

Norman Records

Thank you to Scott McKeating for this review.

‘Since I began releasing my own music back in 2005 I have interacted with many musicians who have impressed me not only with their imaginative and inspiring music but also with their warmth and modesty.

Motion.Silence.Echo was inspired by these musicians. I have always been interested in experimentation. I am fond of creating a sound and then working with that sound, deconstructing it, developing it, re-imagining it. In 2007 I hit upon the idea of allowing others the opportunity to remix my work.

I chose my remixers very carefully, I wanted artists I knew would have the courage and talent to really explore my music, people I knew would be unafraid of pulling it into their own soundworld, developing it and and re-presenting it back to me in a new form. People who I knew would be unafraid to show me something new about my music.

As an album Motion.Silence.Echo is diverse and eclectic, but ultimately coherent and satisfying. The results are incredible – startling, surprising, unnerving, comforting, imaginative, stark, complex, thrilling… an exciting testament to the wealth of talent within’

Susan Matthews, October 2011

A double album of remixes of Susan’s music. Released Friday 11th November 2011

Disc One

My Name Is Safe In Your Mouth remixed by Nick Grey
Un Performance de Leurre (A Decoy Performance remixed by Rainier Lericolais
A Dysfunctional Hush remixed by Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo
Where Birds Come To Die remixed by George Rogers
Joy’s Farewell remixed by M
Summer’s Faith In Summer’s End (Summer’s Over) remixed by Alistair Crosbie
Flinch remixed by Daniel Park
Blistered Moonlight remixed by Tony Wakeford

Disc Two

King Of The World remixed by Andrew Paine
The River Is Flowing (On Gwendraeth Fach) remixed by Marco Lucchi
The Lie That Holds Up The Sky remixed by Tex la Homa
Earth Stammers remixed by The Dead Mauriacs
Slow Corrosion (Hushed Corrosive/Lifelore) remixed by Clutter
Time Will Leave Me Behind remixed by Beed and Fascia
Almost February remixed by 1000 Aeroplanes Crashing In The Night
Veiled remixed by Damon Shulman

http://sonicoysterrecords.blogspot.com/

…according to our Phil on 20 October 2011.

We’ve had a few CD’s in lately by Matthew Shaw on labels such as Sirenwire and Sonic Oyster. Here’s one on his own label Apollolaan. Why have a label if you can’t release your own music eh? This is his ‘audio’ take on Lanreath which is a small Cornish village (population 514 in 2001) so don’t expect massive boom raves and that if you’re off there! This is a blissful sounding 47 minute drone piece which will evoke feelings of the countryside and the like as it’s got a pastoral vibe running through it… But that could be all the birds twattering on in the background which totally took me by surprise (I thought they were in the room….).  It’s warm evocative drone music which is extremely well done. Having never been to Lanreath I can’t say if it would remind me of it but listening to this I’d be more than happy to pop down and mince about for a bit.

Rating: 4 …according to our Brian on 22 September 2011. I know a little about William Blake, enough to know the late artist, poet, engraver and philosopher has enough fanatical devotees to keep him on the front line of seminal, legendary visionaries for centuries to come. If anyone makes a great majority of us look like hopeless under-achievers it’s this intense madhead. Matthew Shaw is probably a devotee, he’s been inspired by one of Blake’s unfinished late 18th century “prophetic” books, otherwise known as ‘Vala’. Blake’s was dark, dream-like and powerful writing with a real sense of the foreboding, this five track recording indeed has a suitably sinister ambient drone profile but at one point has a simultaneously innocent folk-esque beauty. It’s centrepiece ‘Luvah’ with its birdsong, wistful acoustic guitar and balmy field recordings threatened from the wings by tormented dark ambient wails and other unnameable terrors that I dig the most. Like dense, charcoal-grey thunderclouds interrupting a beautiful summer’s morning in a park! ‘Urthona’ startles with the wailing of trapped souls in limbo and the finale is a deep, heady rush of druid-like drone. Good creepy vibe throughout with some beautifully layered production!

Get it here