22 year-old South London artist Matt Maltese today announced his biggest headline tour to date – starting at Dublin’s The Workmans Club on 20 November and culminating at Bristol’s Thekla on 30 November. Matt will play a special homecoming show at the soon-to-be opened Hackney Arts Centre – the newly renovated Savoy Cinema – on 27 November. Tickets for all shows are available here.
Matt Maltese released Bad Contestant, his long awaited debut record via Atlantic Records on 8 June. The record, a product of 12 days spent in Foxygen instigator Jonathan Rado’s Los Angeles studio and many hours of sessions with Londoner Alex Burey, displays a no-less-than stunning leap forward in songwriting confidence from the critically acclaimed young musician.
Credited with steering the lush sounding debut albums from Whitney, Weyes Blood and the Lemon Twigs, as well as Father John Misty’s universally praised new album God’s Favourite Customer, Jonathan Rado has helped drench the record with Californian atmospherics, drawing out Matt’s sweetly drifting vocals over a swell of jubilant guitars, brass and drums. Featuring reworked versions of fan favourites and previous singles ‘Strange Time’ and ‘As The World Caves In’ amongst nine beautiful new tracks, Bad Contestant is a grand coming-of-age album packed with Matt’s typically complex, witty melancholy and uplifting melodies.
British but born to Canadian parents, and a focal point of the vibrant South London scene which includes Shame, HMLTD, Goat Girl, Sorry, and black midi to name but a few, Matt Maltese’s acerbic, witty songwriting has won admiring glances on both sides of the Atlantic around the release of Bad Contestant. The record received rave reviews with four stars coming from CLASH, Dork, The Line Of Best Fit, NME, and Q, and five from DIY. NPR crowned Bad Contestant “love songs for the end of the world”, and Noisey labelled Matt a teenage Jarvis Cocker, “if he’d spent more time at The Windmill pub in Brixton and was in a better mood.” While Wonderland said “the songs twinkle with sincerity and hopefulness” just as Another Man lauded the record’s “to-the-bone depictions of young life.”
With Bad Contestant out in the world, attention now turns to bringing the record to life in front of Matt’s growing legion of fans up and down the country this November.
21 July | Deer Shed Festival, Topcliffe
9 August | Winterthurer Musikfestwochen, Switzerland
20 November | The Workmans Club, Dublin
21 November | Band on The Wall, Manchester
22 November | Glasgow, Broadcast
24 November | Beat Connection – South Street Arts Centre, Reading
26 November | The Haunt, Brighton
27 November | Hackney Arts Centre, London
29 November | The Loft, Southampton
30 November | Thekla, Bristol
