On from ten, with love Matthew Xavier Corrigan emerges as a solo artist with a unique sonic palette inspired by a broad career - spanning folk, rock, jazz and hip-hop production. The result is something beautifully organic - confident and polished but brimming with the life and energy of live performance.
On April 30th 2022, one year prior to the release of the EP's first single Meadow, Matthew pulled the curtain on his previous project Ghostking is Dead with what he called a "full-length eulogy". The goal was to free himself to focus on live performance and arrangement, escaping the confines of digital composition. This process shows throughout throughout his new EP. Corrigan is accompanied by Peter O'Sullivan and Hugh O'Connor, his long-standing bandmates in Alex Gough's quartet performing jazzy hip-hop cuts throughout Europe: their shared improvisational vocabulary successfully makes the leap across to folk music. These final recordings mark the result of countless takes and practice sessions. The songs feel deliberate and fluid all at once - as though they were lived-in for years.
Of all the songs on the EP, that first single Meadow displays this dynamic most clearly as the song moves into its last act; the protagonist arriving to a former idyll to find the land poisoned and barren. The song structurally collapses and rebuilds itself around the metaphorical poison, venom dripping from every aspect of the performance, notably including Dylan Howe's appearance on the alto sax.
Sweeping in from that is the ephemeral The Dream I; the artist leading with just his acoustic guitar and subtle atmospheric synths, reckoning with visions of the past crossing his mind in his reverie. In turn downstream, Beautiful Summer is set in impeding apocalypse, vocals overdubbed and echoed, buzzing sawtooth synths and field recordings of church bell clatter, walls closing in. Current sweeps onwards to Convenience - a complex exploration of sexuality, contrasting desire with disgust and shame, dripping with complex layers of processed vocals; and meandering on to the estuary at Selective Memory, a fond meditation on things lost, to be hopefully be found again, and a surrender to repetition.
“I finished this project when in Prague earlier this year, after working on it for a very long time. I really can't even explain how important it is for me to share this collection of music, it's a pretty big turning point in my life in ways I think I'll be trying to articulate for the next little while.” - Matthew Xavier Corrigan
The release of from ten, with love represents a transitional phase from the artist in many respects. Alongside the release of the EP and his recent live performances under the Matthew Xavier Corrigan name, the artist is also actively performing with and producing for a range of other musicians as well as planning his first music & arts festival through his recently-established production company Elm, Oak, Cedar.
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