Matt DeMello
There's No Place Like Nowhere
A six-track songcycle that mixes spare DIY arrangements and emotional vulnerability with the classical extravagance of prog rock. The all-synthesizer approaches to the orchestral arrangements made many of DeMello's close friends and family shrug upon release but won him a small cult of vaporwave - or "adjacentwave" - fans on Twitter following the #freealbumcodes hashtag.
Think Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd fronted by Alex Chilton trying to cover "Rhapsody in Blue" with Brian Eno on the boards and you're most of the way there.
"Kind of Antony and the Johnsons with the histrionics dialed down a bit, or Regina Spektor with more hope... Lovely music, aggressively personal."
-- Chris Roper, Noonday Tune
"Like lounge music from some psychedelic future, emotive and sometimes beautiful. I really don't know why Matt DeMello isn't on everyone's favorites list. An overlooked gem of a record filled with bombast and drama. There are a lot of emotions and directions being explored in a soundscape rife with the sparkly bits."
- Jim Moon, TAXESS, Telekenesis Records
"DeMello's first record is a deeply personal journey, and one that will continue to surprise upon revisiting. Though it appears to be a singer-songwriter record at first glance, the record subverts the cliches of the genre. You'll hear elements of prog, classical, and indie rock through the lens of Brian Wilson along the way. There's nothing quite like it."
- Ian "Ian Cat" Laczynski
"This is the sort of music that makes me want to move to New York... You won't be disappointed."
- J.M. Smig, Sophisticated Schizophrenic Records
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