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Eric Matthews | |
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 Matthews at his home in 2012 | |
| Born | January 12, 1969 Compton, California, United States |
| Occupation(s) | composer, musician, recording artist, record producer |
Eric Matthews (born January 12, 1969, in Compton, California, United States) is an American composer, musician, recording artist, and record producer. [1]
Eric Matthews began his serious recording career as one half of the band Cardinal. Cardinal was formed with Australian singer-songwriter Richard Davies in 1992 while both lived in Boston, Massachusetts. [1] Cardinal introduced Matthews as a multi-instrumentalist and arranger while Davies contributed most of the songwriting. Cardinal, while not a huge commercial success, made a big splash among sophisticated music fans in most of the West's big cities and, with its 1994 self-titled debut, cemented itself as one of the pivotal bands of the 1990s. [2] In 1993, Matthews collaborated with Sebadoh's Lou Barlow and Bob Fay as Belt Buckle, releasing an EP on Sonic Bubblegum Records. [3]
In 1995, Matthews released his debut solo record on Sub Pop Records. It's Heavy In Here, described as "a darkly luxuriant sequence of exquisitely arranged and executed orchestral pop", [3] featured the radio hit "Fanfare" and went on to be a top seller for Sub Pop and received positive reviews. [4] In 1997, the follow-up album The Lateness of the Hour was released on Sub Pop. [1] It did not sell as well as It's Heavy In Here, but included orchestral instruments within its rock stylings.
Sub Pop and Matthews terminated their relationship in 1999, and he began working as a sideman for such groups as Tahiti 80, The Dandy Warhols, Ivy, Man of the Year, Elliott Smith, Paula Kelley, Pugwash, Volovan, and Bug 2000.
In 2004, Matthews began a relationship with Empyrean Records to re-issue the Cardinal record. He has since continued to release music under the Empyrean label.
In 2005, Matthews released his third solo record, entitled Six Kinds of Passion Looking For An Exit, and in 2006 another album entitled Foundation Sounds. In the summer of 2006, Matthews announced that he and a guitarist from Cleveland named Christopher Seink had formed a new instrumental band called Seinking Ships. In 2008, Eric Matthews and Empyrean Records released The Imagination Stage to a flurry of glowing reviews heralding Eric's return to the fully orchestrated sound of his Sub Pop releases. In March 2009, Eric ended his professional relationship with Empyrean Records. In 2013 Eric joined the band SheLoom.
Collaborations/guest musicians include: Richard Davies, Jason Falkner, Spookey Ruben, Elliott Smith, Gregg Williams, Tony Lash, Robert Harris, Christopher Seink, Mark Eitzel, Lou Barlow, Bob Fay, R. Stevie Moore, and Steven Hanford.
Sub Pop is an independent record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. Sub Pop achieved fame in the early 1990s for signing Seattle bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, central players in the grunge movement. They are often credited with helping popularize grunge music. The label's roster includes Fleet Foxes, Tad, Beach House, The Postal Service, Sleater-Kinney, Flight of the Conchords, Foals, Blitzen Trapper, Father John Misty, clipping., Shabazz Palaces, Weyes Blood, Guerilla Toss, Bully, Low, METZ, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Kiwi Jr., TV Priest and The Shins. In 1995, the owners of Sub Pop sold a 49% stake of the label to the Warner Music Group.
Ultramega OK is the debut studio album by American rock band Soundgarden, released on October 31, 1988, by SST Records. Following the release of the EPs Screaming Life (1987) and Fopp (1988), both for the Sub Pop record label, Soundgarden signed with SST and went to work on their debut full-length. The resulting album contained elements of heavy metal, psychedelic rock, and hardcore punk. The band supported the album with a tour of the United States, as well as its first overseas tour.
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band formed in 1986 in Northampton, Massachusetts, by Eric Gaffney and Lou Barlow, with multi-instrumentalist Jason Loewenstein completing the line-up in 1989. Barlow co-created Sebadoh as an outlet for his songwriting when J. Mascis gradually took over creative control of Dinosaur Jr., in which Barlow plays bass guitar.
Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion, Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His first band, which was formed in Amherst, Massachusetts, was Deep Wound.
The Folk Implosion is an American band founded in the early 1990s by Lou Barlow and John Davis. It was initially a side-project started by Barlow to explore different territory than that which was being canvassed with his primary band at the time, Sebadoh. The name is a play on the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The band was on hiatus from 2004 to 2020.
Eric's Trip is a Canadian indie rock band from Moncton, New Brunswick. Eric's Trip achieved prominence as the first Canadian band to be signed to Seattle's flagship grunge label Sub Pop in the early 1990s.
Tad was an American rock band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1988 by Tad Doyle. They are often recognized as one of the first bands of the grunge era.
Rick White is a Canadian musician and singer-songwriter. Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, he was a member of indie bands Eric's Trip, Elevator, Perplexus, and The Unintended. White first played music, in a band called "Bloodstain", in 1984, before starting his own band "in 1986", called "T.C.I.B", which later transitioned into the band name, "The Underdogs", which lasted from the summer of 1987, until June 1988. By the summer of 1989, The Underdogs had broken up, and Rick had joined another band, "The Forest", which lasted from the 1989, until June 1990, with a one-off recording session happening in December, 1990. Prior to Eric's Trip, and while in Eric's Trip, White also recorded two solo-produced albums, one in March 1990, and another in August 1991, but both were not released until 2022. Known for lo-fi recording, he has also recorded and produced music for The Sadies, Orange Glass, Joel Plaskett, One Hundred Dollars, Dog Day, HotKid and his former Eric's Trip bandmate Julie Doiron.
Green Magnet School was an experimental rock band formed in Massachusetts during 1987. They released three albums in the 1990s, one of which appeared on the prominent independent label Sub Pop Records. They disbanded in 1997, but briefly reunited in 2014.
Harmacy is the sixth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1996.
Plexi was an American gothic noise rock band consisting of Michael Angelos, Michael Barragan and Norm Block. Formed in 1993, their original name was Godseed. Their sound has been compared to bands such as Bauhaus, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Bailter Space, Swervedriver, The Psychedelic Furs, My Bloody Valentine and Psi Com. Plexi's material combined a mix of detached, wry, existential, and romantic lyrics with a flamboyant blend of glam rock and artsy avant-garde textures and noise. Guitarist Michael Barragan was known for regular use of an Echoplex unit to create chaotic walls of sound.
Bakesale is the fifth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh, released by Sub Pop in 1994. It was the first Sebadoh album released following the departure of founding member, Eric Gaffney, though he did drum on four of the album's tracks from a session engineered by Bob Weston. Tara Jane O'Neil contributed drums to three tracks. Bob Fay, who had previously filled in for Gaffney, officially joined the band for this record. The cover is a photograph of Lou Barlow, aged one-year-old, taken by his mother.
Chamber pop is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of strings, horns, piano, and vocal harmonies, and other components drawn from the orchestral and lounge pop of the 1960s, with an emphasis on melody and texture.
Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock is a compilation album by the American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released in 1992, and marked the band's debut on Sub Pop.
Rusty Willoughby is an American musician born in Staten Island and currently living in Vashon, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. As of 2011, he has been vocalist, songwriter and guitarist or bass guitarist for several Seattle based bands: Pure Joy, Flop (1990–1995), Llama (2005–2008), and Cobirds Unite (2010–). He also briefly played drums for the Fastbacks. He also played with Kurt Bloch of the Fastbacks, Jonathan Poneman, and Scott Sutherland in a Cheap Trick cover band called Sick Man of Europe, and appeared in the film Hype!, a documentary directed about the popularity of grunge rock.
It's Heavy in Here is the first solo studio album by the American singer-songwriter Eric Matthews. It was released by Sub Pop Records on September 26, 1995. A track from the album, "Fanfare", was released as a single in the UK, charting at No. 95.
Richard Davies is an Australian-American musician.
Orchestral pop is pop music that has been arranged and performed by a symphonic orchestra. It may also be conflated with the terms symphonic pop or chamber pop.
"Brand New Love" is a 1986 song written by Lou Barlow. It was first released independently by Barlow under the moniker Sentridoh but has since come to be associated with Sebadoh, the band Barlow formed with Eric Gaffney.
Cardinal is an American indie pop duo founded by musicians Richard Davies and Eric Matthews. The duo was formed in 1992 following Davies' relocation from Australia to the United States, where he met Matthews while both were living in Boston, Massachusetts. Davies serves as Cardinal's lead vocalist and lyricist, while Matthews handles musical arrangements. Cardinal's ornate musical sound, heavily inspired by 1960s baroque pop, has been credited as a major influence on subsequent indie chamber pop artists from the 1990s onward.
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