Concerts & Events

When it came time for fifth full-length Many Times, Matt Hegarty needed to try something different. The Aldershot songwriter, better known as Matthew and The Atlas, was keen to follow up 2023's This Place We Live quickly, jumping straight back into the studio at the end of that same year. Tapping up Bear's Den member and producer Kev Jones for the challenge, they approached Many Times with a production style antithetical to its title: each song was to be recorded in as few takes as possible, stripped-back and direct-to-tape, with no overdubs.

This process, the pair explain, was intended to capture Matt's songwriting in its purest form. Recorded over just two days at the iconic Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, "the idea was just to capture a moment in time that is very, very honest and open," Jones says. Inspired in part by Nick Drake's Pink Moon (which was itself captured over just two nights).

"You've got nowhere to hide, the songs have to speak for themselves," says Kev of the approach, and it's something Matt agrees with. The result is a record which houses some of Matthew and The Atlas' most brilliant songs to date.

https://matthewandtheatlas.com/