Matthew and The Atlas + Wilsen

Matthew and The Atlas, the moniker of British musician Matt Hegarty, is pleased to announce details of his debut album. Other Rivers will be released on 14 April through Communion Records, and is produced by Story Books’ Kristofer Harris and Bear’s Den/Communion’s own Kev Jones. The album was recorded at Squarehead Studios in Kent in late 2013.

The 10 track record marks a fresh perspective for Hegarty’s songwriting since his first EP releases through the fledgling Communion label back in 2011. Building on those primarily acoustic early outings, the new sound is enriched with the buzz and hum of both electronic and live beats. The album also features a number of guests from the extended Communion family, including the production pair on multiple instruments, and the vocal of Australian Matt Corby on Another Way.

It’s a benignly British record, but has a texture more in common with the learned likes of US contemporaries Bill Callahan, Justin Vernon and Will Oldham.

The recent Nowness.com-featured, and Zane Lowe-approved single Pale Sun Rose is an oak-smoked introduction to Hegarty, but the track’s overall atmosphere and drama is replicated throughout the whole record.

Having gently introduced themselves at the start of 2013 with their debut single Anahita – seven-plus minutes of expansive ‘dream folk’ – and the beautiful Dusk before it, New York‘s Wilsen will self-release their mini-album Sirens on 26 August in the UK. Last May the quartet were invited to support Daughter on their North American tour, opening for the trio on a string of sold-out shows. A high-point of each night’s set was their reinterpretation of Grimes’ Oblivion, which has since been added to the band’s Soundcloud page and has racked up 100,000 streams.

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