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Matthew Dear - Black City (Ghostly 15 Year Anniversary Edition)

£27.99
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Released in 2010, nearly a decade into his craft, Black City was a watershed moment for Matthew Dear. A steely noir set that straddled electronic dance and indie rock classification, earning him Best New Music from Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band, the album unlocked Dear's darkest and most engrossing ideas to date. The love-obsessed songwriter of 2007's Asa Breed had given way to a more existentially paranoid entity. Creeping disco tempos, cavernous atmospherics, and strange distortions brought his signature avant-pop sound to a moodier place. Black City wasn't to be found on any map. It was a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives, with flashes of sweetness and hope.

In Black City, nothing is at it seems: leadoff single "Little People (Black City)" is a nine-and-a-half minute disco odyssey, subverting its gleaming electronic lead with eerily giddy backing vocals and cryptic, ominous lyrics ("a frozen wasted heart / has died", "love me like a clown"); "You Put a Smell on Me" is a sordid sex romp set to hysterically chattering percussion and a serrated synth line that will set your teeth on edge; "More Surgery" at first recalls the barely-there Krautrock of Harmonia in its burbling minimalism, until Dear's chanted chorus of "Alter genetics / to make my body glow / I need more surgery / there's so much more to know" sends the track hurtling into a dystopian future.

And yet, for all the foreboding moods on Black City, it's the album's sweeter moments that illustrate Matthew Dear's growing maturity as a songwriter. "Slowdance" is a futuristic lullaby in which Dear articulates a lover's helplessness ("I can't be the one to tell you everything's wrong") over breathy, Arthur Russell-esque cello swishes; the album-closing "Gem" is an achingly simple, reverb-drenched piano ballad that ends with a long, slow fade.

Edition Info

• On the occasion of Ghostly's 25th Anniversary and Black City’s 15th Anniversary, Ghostly and Matthew Dear present a special Transparent Silver vinyl repressing.
• Limited edition 15th-anniversary Transparent Silver edition with custom paper obi and deluxe edition b-sides and remix downloads.

Tracklisting

1. Honey
2. I Can’t Feel
3. Little People (Black City)
4. Slowdance
5. Soil To Seed
6. You Put A Spell On Me
7. Shortwave
8. Monkey
9. More Surgery
10. Gem

Released: 22nd November 2024

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Matthew Dear - Black City (Ghostly 15 Year Anniversary Edition)

£27.99
                               
👌 Your order qualifies for free shipping You are just £85 away from free UK shipping!

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