Matt Elliott is a British artist and composer whose music explores the boundaries between folk, electronica and sonic experimentation. As a former member of the band The Third Eye Foundation, he began a solo career marked by strong emotional depth and a unique approach to songwriting. On albums like The Mess We Made, Howling Songs i Only Myocardial Infarction Can Break Your Heart Matt Elliott weaves melancholic and poetic atmospheres, fusing acoustic instruments with subtle electronic textures. His work is characterized by an intimate, narrative exploration in which human fragility and the search for meaning intertwine. A true sonic alchemist, Matt Elliott follows his own path, fusing introspection and musical innovation in a completely unique way.
There are musicians you may not have heard of, but once you hear them, you can't stop listening to them.
Matt Elliott is like that. I first heard of him only in passing because he played in bands I listened to in the nineties, Movietone and Flying Saucer Attack. On the first albums of both bands (both of which were from his native Bristol), he played a supporting role, but even then he started recording under his pseudonym Third Eye Foundation. It was electronic music inspired by the then popular trip hop, but with a touch of darker industrial music. On subsequent albums under that name, he explored even darker and heavier themes with a rather experimental metal approach, but with increasing approval from both critics and the audience. And then in 2003, the first album under his real name, The Mess We Made, appeared, and it was a turn from dark electronic experimental music to folk-inspired post rock, still with a lot of electronics, but the songs now had structure, verses and choruses, which was not often the case before. This was followed by the trilogy Drinking, Failing and Howling Songs, inspired by the folk music of Eastern European traditions, but even more by traditional English sea shanties, songs of sailors and fishermen. The themes were, of course, the dark side of sailing, maritime accidents and unrequited love. The Drinking Songs album also includes the concert favorite The Kursk, a terrifying song about the accident of a Russian nuclear submarine and the death of 118 sailors in the depths of the sea. Just for that song and Matt's perfect performance on acoustic guitar and loops, when in the end one man becomes a choir and orchestra of the ghosts of drowned people, it is worth coming to his concert.
On subsequent albums, he explored music and themes from ancient Greece, France (where he now lives), Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Spain, a lot of Jewish klezmer influences, and even the music of our region, never straying too far from the themes that have always occupied him. Matt Elliott is both a musical and literary erudite, his lyrics are full of historical references, as is the music. Melancholy, the weight of history, and the exploration of the dark side of the human spirit give Elliott's music a special touch. No one today makes music like his.
His latest studio album is the aptly named, mostly acoustic, The End of Days from 2023.
I attended Matt Elliott's concert in 2017 at the Small Plant of the Culture Factory and left feeling delighted and moved. It was an unforgettable experience, a feeling of being present at something big, important and beautiful. To this day, I remember that concert as if it were yesterday. So, if you can't miss any musical event in Split this year, Matt Elliott is the first one to come.
- Zdeslav Benzon
