I am no doubt a fan of Matt Doty's work. His solo debut Black Aura My Sun was probably the best album of 2020 I missed and didn't include on this blog. I'm not going to make the same mistake again, especially that Every Moment, Everything You Need is at least as good as its predecessor.
Doty's signature sound is the heavier and slower face of shoegaze music. This is the kind of sound that lazily pours out of speakers and drowns everything around in the melancholic, tear-jerking atmosphere. It doesn't have any troubles with catching the audience attention either - the mesmerizing abilities are hidden in the heavy layers of sound that keep overwhelming the audience throughout the release. In some places, his music makes me think of a heavier version of Hanging Valleys or Crushed Stars with its slowcore and superdreamy mood, but in other, it's surprisingly a dreamy variation on trip-hop as Where Did You Go openly shows this ethereal electronica inspirations.
Quite suitably for the music, the lyrics are filled with melancholia and worn out emotions. There's little fire in the artist's words, it's more about acceptation of the sad, dark places one could find oneself in as in Goodbye Vista: "I left/ Mindless/ Just want to reach you... Where was the insight/ Where was your mind". If you want to drown in melancholic music, this is the first address to go to.
Every Moment, Everything You Need costs 8 USD.
Check: Visions
Country: California, US
Genre: thick shoegaze
Label: felte
