- Review by Faye Coulman
CHAOS THEORY: An interview with industrial solo talent Matt Hart
From the sinewy, pulverising grooves of Fear Factory through to inky lashings of EBM and mind-altering electronica, Matt Hart’s restlessly evolving sound has undergone no small amount of genre-defying progression and adjustment over the expansive course of the past decade. Having recently cemented a strain of intensely dark and visceral music that’s unmistakably his own, the solo talent and DJ explains how this futuristic entity first came to be.
“When I started I really wanted to recreate the music of Fear Factory, but since then it’s certainly evolved into a more synth-based industrial sound,” begins solo artist Matt Hart. With his musical tastes and inclinations anchored firmly in the distortion-drenched aggressive territories of heavy metal, Hart began playing guitar with industrial metallers Concrete Lung back in 2009 whilst dabbling in a smattering of his own independent songwriting around roughly the same time period. In 2014, he also started DJing at famed London EBM and industrial club night Slimelight, with this exciting new venture opening his compositional mind to a varied host of fresh influences and inspirations.
“Being a DJ really expanded my taste in music,” the composer recalls." DJing industrial, EBM, synthwave etc. means there’s probably a bit of all of that incorporated into my music, and yet I still feel it sounds like me!”
But with such a diverse wealth of musical influences and elements, the process of pinning down the precise form and essence of Hart’s trademark sound is no easily achievable feat, with his 2017 debut ‘Anthology of Corrosion’ comprising a total of thirteen tracks recorded at various different points over the past decade. Since then, a string of EPs have followed in thick and fast succession, with each interconnected release in the ‘Chaos Rising’ trilogy following an exceptionally dark, post-apocalyptic narrative.
Matt expands, “When I wrote ‘Chaos Rising’ I intended it on just being a one-off release, but as a started writing what was to become ‘Chaos Rising 2’, I felt I had more to say in the world I was creating. I had inadvertently fallen into a world of man vs. machine. I guess in short form, ‘CR’ is the rise of the machine, ‘CR2’ is the war and eventual holocaust and ‘CR3’ is about the survival in a post-fallout world.”
With the follow-up to ‘Chaos Rising 3’ tipped for release later this year, Hart’s forthcoming studio material suggests something of a sharpening and refocusing of his current sound. “I really end up writing what comes into my mind, although recently I’ve been trying harder to focus the sound so that it is more consistent,” Matt states before confirming, “I’m planning on releasing an album by the end of the year. In the meantime there will be a couple of singles and possibly a couple more remixes, of which I’ve already released three of this year.”
For all the latest on Matt’s current and upcoming work, check out matthart.bandcamp.com
Catch Matt Hart live with Grendel at the London Electrowerkz on 27th April 2019