Elliott, Matt
The Calm Before
Matt Elliott started out in Bristol in the mid-90s as The Third Eye Foundation, whose 1996 album Semtex became a reference for drum & bass and experimental electronica. Under his own name he turned to a dark, guitar-led folk with Mediterranean and Eastern European influences, released records on Domino and Ici d'Ailleurs, remixed Mogwai, Blonde Redhead, Ulver and Thurston Moore, and played Primavera, Le Guess Who? and All Tomorrow's Parties. The Calm Before is his seventh album under his own name. He recorded it with producer David Chalmin and the musicians from Only Myocardial Infarction Can Break Your Heart (2013). After a short instrumental opening, five long songs start from a whispered guitar line and build up to noisy storms; the title track runs over fourteen minutes. The lyrics deal with rejection, the fall of the powerful, a religious childhood and Plato's allegory of the cave.