Matt Valentine

Matt Valentine was a member of Tower Recordings. An overlooked '90s New York ensemble, that also featured P.G. Six, which produced some of the most intriguing homespun urban folk recordings of the decade, and released a string of albums that covered corrosive no wave noise, abstract tape experimentation, and inspired delicate melodic folk. The springboard for the sound they shape as their own is a mixture of ESP folk, British folk, free jazz, and their own willful experimentation. Obvious points of reference could be the '60s groups Pearls Before Swine and The Fugs, who had a knack of keeping exquisite songs at the core of their outward experimentation and chaotic group jamming; linking the diverse influences and historical references -- the work of Can, Sun Ra, and Sonic Youth spring to mind -- the overall sound is far from pastiche. The group was somewhat of an institution, which can be accredited to their frequent underground live shows that kept the spirit of the "happening" alive in the '90s.

Matt Valentine has slowly leaked out a constantly expanding body of work in recent years as Tower Recordings, The MV & EE Medicine Show (along with Erika Elder “EE”), and under his own name. Together MV & EE have formulated a modern, psychedelic-blues shanty by giving shelter to releases of various mediums (chapbook, CD-R, DVD-R) and artists via their own Vermont-based Child of the Microtones imprint.

Creek to Creation, the most recent of his solo efforts, is quite a smoky peak within Valentine’s vinyl output. Here the folk-form gives way to openness and the absorbent natural world more than other MV recordings these ears have heard before. Across the two sides, Valentine’s gauzy blues scriptures morph into miniature rhythms at a nodding pace that gently warps the time and space immediately around you. His deep aural sheen of prism tones has become the point of cohesion for his solo and Medicine Show recordings.

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