It may all be one big coincidence, but for a while now all of the best demos landing in the Border Community office seem to come from the UK, and our new Welsh recruit
Wesley Matsell is no exception to that rule.
The process by which this 25 year old from Merthyr Tydfil came to have his debut solo release on Border Community was a rather involved one, featuring over a year of sneak preview airings in James Holden sets, CDs going missing in the post, and a lengthy quest for that perfect B-side which we just knew he had lurking on his hard drive. But finally everything is now in place for us to unleash the bouncy rhythms and krauty arpeggios of 'Bernwerk' on the world: a soon-to-be-massive Airwolf-meets-Jean-Michel-Jarre Schaffel-Rave-Monster, and no mistake.
Wesley grew up in Merthyr Tydfil in the heart of the South Wales valleys, heading to Cardiff when the time came for university where he completed a degree in the rather specialised field of Timebased Practice (performance, video, sonic and installation art to you and me). Now back home in Merthyr Tydfil, by day he works for a finance company, whilst by night he splits his time between youth-work with his local church, outdoor activities like hiking and cycling, and also a spot of musical exploration inbetween.
It was Wesley's older brother who first turned him on to the idea of there being other types of music outside what got played on Top Of The Pops, and taking mid-nineties indie as his departure point he soon became immersed in the world of Warp-related electronica. Nowadays his wide-ranging list of influcences takes in modern classical, Rephlex, acid house, the evolution of dance music from early house through hardcore and rave, a very select group of trendy bands, the feelgood Ed Banger scene, grime and dubstep, and a whole lot more: “I love music that is complex, challenging, uncompromising, raw, polished, simple, peaceful, banging erm – you get the idea!”, Wesley attempts to explain.
His own earliest musical dabblings saw him recording keyboard performances onto cassette at the age of just 14. Nowadays he prefers a mixture of generic computer software and his own custom-made Reaktor creations, which he uses to make a variety of techy dancefloor orientated tracks as well as shorter ambient pieces. That special Border Community B-side 'Diffusion27' we mentioned earlier is a good example of the type of experimentation that Wesley's hard drive is stuffed with: a twenty minute long atmospheric improvisation recorded live in a single take whose twinkly layers gently drift and morph like a modern day Tangerine Dream. At one point Wesley set up his own CDR label named Kleinesklicken, but other than that his only previous recorded outing was a ambient track under his Chulk alter-ego which featured on modern rave label ADAADAT's first 'Trade and Almanac Vol. 1' compilation.
Wesley also made some ventures into the live arena during university, with Reaktor- based live outings, sets involving smashed and reassembled 7” singles and some primitive live video performances. The latest incarnation of the Wesley Matsell live experience is not yet ready for public consumption, but he may be tempted into the odd spot of DJing, where you should expect a music policy which he describes himself as “ridiculously eclectic, bordering on the obtuse: italodisco played next to Merzbow, early 808 State, NWA, Autechre and Philip Glass”. Now that is what we like to hear...
