Music Matters - Friday, 8 October 2021 - 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Hosted by Joe

Always Was – Mat Ward; Single [2021]*
Cultural Theft - Curse Ov Dialect; Dark Days Bright Nights [Heavy Machinery Records][2021]*
LEGACY part 2 ft. Missy Higgins – Birdz; Legacy [2021]
Wave - Mo'Ju; O.K. [Heavy Machinery Records][2021]*
Crest Of Gold - Lady Lash; Spiritual Misfit [Heavy Machinery Records][2021]*
Missing You (Radio Edit) - Totek; Single [2021]*
The World Is Cold feat. Mantra & Jane Tyrrell - Cookin' On 3 Burners; 7" Single (A Side) [2021]*
Time is Now ft. Yusupha Ngum (Radio Edit) - Brotha Asanti; Morning After Vol. 1 [Yo CiTY records][2021]
Lullaby – Lydia Fairhall; The Narrows [2021]
Pull The Thread (Susie's Theme) – The Orbweavers; Single [2021]*
Heavy - Charm Of Finches; Wonderful Oblivion [2021]*
Here are the Mountains - Sage Roadknight; Single [2021]
Dance In The Depths - Sirens; Sirens EP [2021]*
Heaven - Grace Cummings; Storm Queen [2021]*
Daylight Saving – Anna Smyrk; The Hour Between Us EP [2021]*
Belleza Nocturna – Plum Green; Somnambulistic [2021]*
I Went To The Ocean – Lucy Roleff; Left Open In A Room [2019]*
Half Moon Bay - Sherry Rich; The Divine Crimson V [2021]*
Half Seas – Lontano; Single [2021][Lontano][2022]
Blood - The Money War; Blood EP [2021]*
Run - Velvet Bloom; Single [2021]
Violet Skies - The Kennedy Crime; Single [2021]
Sun and Rain [live in studio] - XANI; Depths - A collection from the bottom of the well (live in studio)[2021]*
Wake - Misha Doumnov; soundtrack to the animation "Wake" by Mark Boston (Best Animated Visuals - International Independent Film Awards - Spring Session Encino (un-released) [2020]
Beckett And Tubbs - Dave Graney And Clare Moore; Everything Was Funny [2021]*
Iamur - Hugo Race; Dishee [2021]*
* can be found at www.bandcamp.com(link is external) Next Bandcamp is Friday November 5 !

Support musicians whenever you can, buying their music, merchandise or tickets to online performances and your local music store while they trade online.

About Music Matters:
Diverse new sounds from the crate and around the planet, special live-in-the-studio performances from a range of interesting artists, interviews and gig guides. Featuring diverse new sounds from independent local & global artists, special live-in-the-studio performances, interviews and local gig guide. Every fortnight, Jane brings you a subjective guide to local gigs, playing the music of the performers she recommends you get out and see live that week. On alternate Fridays, Joe will do more of the same with a little bit of reflection and delving into some recent releases.
Presenters:

Jane Brownrigg and Joe Malignaggi 

3cr.org.au/musicmatters
https://matward.bandcamp.com/track/always-was

Always Was On 3CR Radio's Music Matters 08 Sep 2021

Beat made with Cymatics Melody Collection 2022.
Sample from speech by Greta Thunberg at COP26 in Glasgow, addressing the root causes of the climate crisis.
"Many are starting to ask themselves 
what will it take for the people in
power to wake up? 
But let's be clear,
they are already awake. 
They know exactly what they are doing,
they know exactly what priceless values 
they are sacrificing to maintain
business as usual. 
The leaders
are not doing nothing, 
they are actively creating loopholes and
shaping frameworks to benefit themselves 
and to continue profiting from this
destructive system. 
This is an active choice by the leaders
to continue to let the exploitation of 
people and nature and the destruction of
present and future living conditions to
take place.
The COP has turned into a PR event
where leaders are giving beautiful 
speeches and announcing fancy
commitments and targets, 
while behind the curtains the
governments of the Global North 
countries are still refusing to take any
drastic climate action.
It seems like their main goal is to
continue to fight for the status quo 
and COP26 has been named the most
exclusionary COP ever. 
This is no longer a climate conference,
this is now 
a Global North Greenwash Festival.
A two-week long celebration of business
as usual and blah blah blah."

MAT WARD - BLAH BLAH BLAH (2022 Melody Collection Beat Contest)

Three track sampler from Mat Ward's album based on protest chants, Why I Protest, released on all platforms on January 21, 2022.

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, ScoMo Has Got To Go [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Why Are You In Riot Gear? I Don't See No Riot Here (featuring Lucky Luke) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

They Say Accident, We Say Murder [FREE DOWNLOAD]

"What Do We Want? Climate Action!" Bonus Track From Why I Protest on the Music Matters show on 3CR Radio In Melbourne.

Taken from the bonus version of my album based on protest chants, Why I Protest. Free download on Bandcamp. Just enter zero as the amount to pay. Comes with a fully hyperlinked PDF booklet explaining all the lyrics.

https://matward.bandcamp.com/album/why-i-protest-bonus-version

What Do We Want? Climate Action! Bonus track from Why I Protest on 3CR Radio in Melbourne

Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land from the album Why I Protest on the Brand New Key show with Clinkas on 3BBR 103.1FM West Gippsland radio, Australia 29.01.22

Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land on 3BBR 103.1FM West Gippsland radio, Australia

Why I Protest Reviewed On 4ZZZ Radio's The New Releases Show in Brisbane Australia 04.02.22

From the radio show's website:
https://4zzz.org.au/program/the-new-releases-show

Mat Ward
Why Are You In Riot Gear? I Don't See No Riot Here (Ft. Lucky Luke)AUS

Mat Ward: Why I Protest (Indie) 

 

Why are you in riot gear? I don’t see no riot here (Ft. Lucky Luke)

 

Released: Now

 

- It doesn’t get much radio play or press coverage, but the protest chant is a music genre with a long history and a global network of performers and audiences. Almost everyone could recite a protest chant off the top of their head, such is the way these little ditties worm their way into the consciousness.

 

Occasionally, the protest chant interacts with the pop music world. Sometimes a song is written with the specific aim of it being sung on the picket line – like Pete Seeger penning We Shall Overcome or John Lennon writing Power To The People. Sometimes protesters make a song their own – like Black Lives Matter activists chanting Kendrick Lamar’s We Gonna Be Alright while being pepper sprayed by police, or Kansas’ cheesy 70’s ballad Dust In The Wind becoming the unlikely melody of Myanmar’s most famous protest anthem. Sometimes pop songs imitate protest chants to powerful effect – what would Public Enemy’s biggest songs be without their chant-along chorus, let alone the entire genre of street punk? And then, every now and again, the two merge when a protest chant becomes the chorus of a pop song. Once this was most likely a folk singer taking seriously the notion of “music of the people”, but since the 90’s and the invention of samplers, it is often electronic musicians who incorporate the sounds of the street march into their song. An update on this tradition is the new album Why I Protest by Mat Ward.

 

Ward is a Sydney based electronic artist. He has been prolifically releasing politically themed music for the last five years, though it has generally been instrumental. For this record, he has started rapping along to his poppy drum’n’bass inspired beats, basing the songs around eleven different protest chants that form the choruses of the album.

 

Some of the chants are old classics, for example opening and closing tracks Always Was Always Will Be Aboriginal Land and The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated. Others are obviously from more recent campaigns, like Science Has The Facts, People Lose With Fake News.

 

Megaphones and chanting are often associated with anger and militancy, but Why I Protest is a fun and light-hearted record. It brings out the musicality in chants – which aren’t just the yelling of an angry mob but involve an artistry of rhythm and rhyme. The best protest chants often incorporate humour too, which comes out here in songs like album highlight Why Are You In Riot Gear? I Don’t See No Riot Here.

 

Why I Protest works as an album of fun singalong political songs, aided by Ward’s verses expanding on the chorus topics. It also works as a tribute to this often neglected form of music – one that is democratically crowd sourced for content; which is designed for and produced by strangers gathered together united by common values. If you go to a lot of rallies, it’s easy to take chants for granted or even find them a bit tiresome. But the protest chant is a musical demonstration of a basic political idea – that one person alone can make a bit of noise, but a group working in unison can shake a city.

 

- Andy Paine.

Why I Protest Reviewed On 4ZZZ Radio's The New Releases Show 04.02.22

For years I've been listening to the Peppermint Iguana radio show, which serves up rad music with big dollops of Welsh humour. I think I remember them saying years back that John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols) is a listener. So it's great that they've played my track "Why Are You In Riot Gear? I Don't See No Riot Here (featuring Lucky Luke)" on their latest show, because I was thinking of John Lydon when I did the lyric (I sound nothing like him, unfortunately!) Hear the original show - it's about 15 minutes in...
http://peppermintiguana.co.uk/listen-again-305/

Riot Gear on the Peppermint Iguana Radio Show, UK 08.02.22

A single to coincide with Australia's 2022 federal election, in which Prime Minister Scott Morrison is trying to get re-elected. Based on the protest chant "Hey hey, ho ho, ScoMo has got to go". Free download.

Lyrics:
He brought in a lump of coal
To Parliament
Held up that dirty rock
Like a diamond
Told people don't be scared
Of the climate
Politicians are for sale
Is what he meant

Australia went up in flames
He went on holidays
Hiding in Hawaii
To dodge the media gaze
As Sydney disappeared
Beneath the smoke haze
And firefighters died
Trying to fight the blaze

Hey Hey Ho Ho ScoMo's Got To Go

He came back and apologised
Tried to shake hands
But couldn't find a hand to shake
right across the land
Everywhere that Scotty went
He found himself banned
no one likes an arsonist
In a burnt land

The world moved on from coal
He started pushing gas
Claiming it's a clean fuel
Cos they'd donated cash
Wrecking all the farmland
Despite the backlash
Destroying the country
From reef to outback

Hey Hey Ho Ho ScoMo's Got To Go

He told us he'd stop the boats
From getting here
Told MPs he'd get the votes
By tapping fear
Didn't care if people fleeing
Were refugees
Claimed he wasn't racist
By cooking curry

Opposed same-sex marriage
Citing God's will
Despite most voters
Backing the bill
Said he didn't want his daughters
Being bedevilled
Despite it being legal
He's trying to crush it still

Hey Hey Ho Ho ScoMo's Got To Go

Confronted by a rape claim
In his cabinet
He tried to shut the case down
Wasn't having it
When thousands of women marched
He refused to meet
Said that they could all be shot
For protesting shit

Refused to condemn Trump
For the riot
Cos Trump let him to do things
On the quiet
Like pushing coal to a world
that doesn't buy it
Cos Trump made him look sane
In the light of it

credits
Music and lyrics written by Mat Ward.
Produced, arranged, mixed and mastered by Mat Ward.
Vocals performed by Mat Ward.
Sample from a recording made at a protest by my long-time activist pal and hero, Rachel Evans.

ScoMo's Got To Go On 3CR Radio in Melbourne 08 April 2022

I drove nine hours to see a meteor shower on May 6, 2022. I was interviewed by this radio show about my latest single while I was on the road.

Mat Ward Interviewed On Melbourne's Music Matters Show - 06 May 2022

Sampler for Slow Car Crash, a concept jungle album about inequality and financial markets.

1. A Few Pieces Of Furniture

"For millions of people, 'wealth' amounts to little more than a few weeks’ wages in a checking account or low-interest savings account, a car, and a few pieces of furniture."

This is a quote from Thomas Piketty's book Capitalism In The 21st Century, whose many graphs illustrating inequality reminded me of the crumpled metal of a car crash. Capitalism and its ever-increasing concentration of wealth seems like one giagantic slow motion pile-up, hence the title of the album. (Any free market fundamentalist will tell you it's running fine, but like any car, it just needs a little maintenance now and again.) All the quotes on the album are voiced by text-to-speech robots to mimic the detached nature of financial markets. They are a reminder that capitalism is synthetic. What is missing from this quote is that even to own a car and a few sticks of furniture makes you wealthier than much of the world. Research by Credit Suisse in 2015 showed that to be in the world's richest 1%, you needed only $700,000. That would put much of the West's middle class in the 1%.

2. Pattern Recognition

"Do you see a pattern? I see one. Is the pattern really there? Can you make money out of it? Or are you imagining it?"

Everyone knows anti-capitalists are angry about being ripped off and they're generally seen by capitalists as a bunch of losers. ("Where are they winning?") What's tragicomic is that even people who buy wholeheartedly into capitalism are also being ripped off. Spotting patterns that may or may not exist is a booming industry. The financial media run graphs pointing out that this moment, right now, looks like that moment, back then, and if that happened then, then this should happen now. The tune's concept is influenced by statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, though I was too lazy to find an apt quote from him, so it's the only track on the album where the words are off the top of my head. This tune also plays on the notion of good dance music being predictable and following patterns, yet nothing in it quite follows a pattern and once you think you've spotted one, it changes. Yet it still manages to sound like a coherent whole, the same way random data may throw up a recognisable pattern, if you look hard enough for it. The riff is probably the catchiest on the album, but I made it by clicking a mouse on a virtual keyboard, which is kind of funny.

3. Richness Is A Relationship Between 2 People

"Richness is a relationship between two people."

My favourite love song is "2 Of Us" - a dreamy, liquid jungle piece written by Jonny L about his girlfriend. Yet when Jonny's girlfriend left him, he remade the song as a beautiful, really dark, paranoid tune. I've always wanted to write a tune that would capture those two sides of Jonny, the light and dark. Then when I saw this quote, "Richness is a relationship between two people", in a book by John Lanchester it struck me as poetry. On the one hand it describes the nature of wealth brutally, so it has this really dark quality. Yet on the other hand it also describes love - what could be richer than that? The chopped break in the middle is my attempt to program beats like Jonny, though I deliberately did it with an obscure break, so the results are not as sparkly as a classic jungle break. To hear beats done properly, check Jonny L. His "This Time EP" is a good start.

Slow Car Crash

Pattern Recognition (Free Download)

A Few Pieces Of Furniture (Free Download)

On June 29, 2017 - the 10th anniversary of Apple's most profitable product, the iPhone - Mat Ward released his album, Inside My... 

The ambient / chill trap album, made entirely on Apple's iPad, describes Apple.

"I thought it was ironic that I'd been making a lot of political music on a device made in a sweatshop," he says. "So I decided to make an album about my iPad, entirely on my iPad. It would keep the music within its four walls and delve right into its parts, from the slick marketing to the kids in the Congo mines.

"This album is dedicated to all the factory workers who assemble Apple's products." 

The album was originally called Inside My iPad and was voiced by Apple's virtual assistant, Siri. However, the distributor refused to release it because Apple's copyright does not allow the word "iPad" - or anything similar-sounding - to be used in an album's title without its authorisation. It also does not allow the voice of Siri to be used in anything shared publicly, even if it is non-profit. 

The album was therefore released with with word "iPad" and Siri's voice both removed - a shame, because Siri's voice was an integral part of the rhythm of the album. It is noticeably absent in a few places, where there is a second or two of silence. The written lyrics and liner notes are still included in the album download from Bandcamp. The album is available on all platforms.

Suicide Nets (Instrumental) [free download]

Bricked Device (Instrumental) [free download]

Taken from Five Eyes, my deeply melodic chill trap album about surveillance, out January 4, 2019.

Five Eyes

Everything's Recorded (free download)

Inspired by a quote from US critic Michael Parenti, who responded to the proud boast by many a corporate journalist that "nobody tells me what to say or write" with: "You say what you like, because they like what you say." 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHwr2Y7mbhc

LYRICS:
You say what you like
Because they like what you say
Yeah

Album sampler for Mat Ward's "future jungle" concept album about the media, to be released 24 January 2020.

Sylistically, the album is a cross between future bass and jungle.

You Say What You Like Because They Like What You Say [free download]

Mat Ward's album Interplanetary Species is being released on all platforms on January 29, 2021. 
What's the biggest issue happening in our lifetime? Apart from the coronavirus and climate change, it's the quest to make humans an interplanetary species, starting with Elon Musk's mission to Mars. People will look back thousands of years from now and say: "That was the point when humans became multiplanetary. I wonder what it was like to live through that time?" This album is all about the mission to make humans an interplanetary species and the controversy surrounding it.

It's Going To Take A Million To Survive (FREE DOWNLOAD)

'Future DnB' artist Mat Ward blends future bass with drum and bass to come up with a different sound. He began producing music in 2016, at first for his favourite rapper, Provocalz. Their first single together, "Behind Enemy Lines" got radio play worldwide. Mat Ward's debut solo release, Slow Car Crash, a concept jungle album about financial markets, was released in January 2017. A chill trap album about Apple, called Inside My..., made entirely on an iPad, followed the same year. On July 31, 2018, when Mars was closest to Earth, he released Disrupted, a lo-fi future bass album about Elon Musk. In 2019, he released Five Eyes - a deeply melodic chill trap album about surveillance. A month later, Provocalz released his hip-hop EP G.O.D with all tracks produced by Mat Ward, who described it as "my favourite thing I've done, music-wise". In January 2020, he released an acclaimed concept album about the media -Filter Bubble - which blended future bass and drum and bass to come up with a new genre. In January 2021 he is releasing Interplanetary Species, a concept 'future DnB' album about the controversial mission to make humans multiplanetary. He writes a monthly music column that has been shared by the likes of Ru Paul, Public Enemy's Chuck D, Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello and Ministry's Al Jourgensen. He is the author of "Around The World In 80 AA's", hailed as an "excellent book" by travelmag.co.uk. He also wrote the book "Real Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Country", called "a must-read" by Britain's I Am Hip-Hop magazine.

Mat Ward

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