Matt Evans: Soft Science
Band leader, composer, and percussionist Matt Evans (member of Tigue) leads members of Wild Up in a new collaborative orchestration of his interplanetary studio compositions. A “mostly-not-chill” collection of brightly-hued “zone poems,” Soft Science bonds together alien synthesizers, squiggly free drumming, and improvisatory chamber-music scores into a compound that is equal parts millennial esoterica, retro-futurist science fiction, and waning utopic yearning.
Matt Evans is a drummer and producer making acoustic and electronic music about the poetic interconnections between landscapes: internal, external, fictional, and virtual. Taking cues from millennial esoterica, natural phenomena, and science fiction, Matt uses drum-driven hypnotic soundscapes and improvisatory performances to embody the imaginary ecosystems of surreal sonic worlds. In “New Topographics” (2020) and “Soft Science” (2022), vintage synth burbles, peculiar percussion skitters, and muddy foraged samples are enmeshed like critters in a sci-fi biome. Matt performs these tracks from the drum kit, with samplers and pedals, embodying the array of characters as a ritualistic representation of these futuristic landscapes. His approach creates a groovy psychedelic instrumental music that is “hyperreal and phantasmal” (Wire Magazine), “meticulous and expressive.” (New York Times), and “a form of chill complexity” (New York Times).
Matt has performed solo at acclaimed venues such as the Guggenheim, The Kitchen, and Roulette; held residencies at Antenna Cloud Farm, Pioneer Works, Exploring the Metropolis, and The Shell House; given talks at Wesleyan University and Dartmouth College; and released solo records with Whatever’s Clever and Moon Glyph (forthcoming). Matt has toured with projects Neti-Neti, Tigue, piano trio Bearthoven, Deerhoof, and others. He’s commissioned and performed music by composers Lea Bertucci, Steve Reich, Sarah Hennies, Michael Gordon, Scott Wollschleger, and others. Past festival appearances have included Le Guess Who? in Utrecht, Netherlands, Big Ears in Tennessee, US, and the Summer Nostros Festival in Athens, Greece. He’s toured throughout the United States and Europe, including shows in Latvia, Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, the UK, Iceland and the Netherlands. Matt has released records with NNA, New Amsterdam, Whatever’s Clever, Cantaloupe, Dethbomb Arc, Perfect Wave, Thrill Jockey, Dinzu Artefacts, and Moon Glyph.