"...an artist who is meant for great things" - Oxford Music Blog One of "Britain's brightest exponents of Americana" - Mercury Prize Recommends "... like a youthful Neil Young..." - Americana UK (8 out of 10) Mat was raised on the ambiguous line dividing Herefordshire from Wales – a place which, interestingly, doesn't seem to know whether it's part of England or Wales. He learned piano as a child before picking up the drums and playing in a few school punk/grunge bands in the early 90s, but only started writing songs at 20 after seeing his uncle play fiddle at a Christmas Eve hootenanny at his grandma’s house in Boston, Mass. At the ripe old age of 29, Mat graduated from university with a First in French and moved to Canada to teach English. Meanwhile, Mat's self-released debut, ‘Home Movie’ (2006) attracted the attention of the newly established UK-based Americana label Clubhouse Records. In March 2010, 'Lay Me Down (To Rest, To Sleep)' was selected for their critically-acclaimed ‘Divided by a Common Language’ compilation. Mat soon made the difficult decision to leave his burgeoning life in Canada and return to the UK with the promise of a new opportunity. Mat is working with producer Rowland Prytherch (Danny & The Champions of the World, The Epstein) who has helped co-produce and engineer new recordings with Mat at Truck Studios in Oxfordshire. Built around a live vocal and acoustic guitar performance with minimal overdubs (done mostly by Mat himself), the new EP 'Forest Fire' is a new direction musically and an insight into Mat’s vision and versatility. Welcoming in the new year with a solo performance at the Equi-Truck festival at Oxford’s O2 Academy, Mat is showing great promise for things to come.
