Matthew Dear

Matthew Dear

Matthew Dear is a Kingsville, Texas–born electronic musician, DJ, dance-music producer and experimental pop artist, born in 1979. He works under several aliases, including Audion, False, Jabberjaw and Matthew Dear, with each name associated with a different style and visual identity. He also fronts a live band called Matthew Dear’s Big Hands.

Labels and projects

Dear co-founds Ghostly International and its dancefloor-focused offshoot, Spectral Sound. He issues much of his dance music through Spectral Sound, while Ghostly International releases his broader work.

Early singles and club releases

His first single is 1999’s “Hands Up For Detroit”, co-produced with ghettotech pioneer Disco D, who performs as Daisha. Later singles include “Stealing Moves” and “Mouth to Mouth”, the latter appearing under the Audion name and reaching the top of the chart. He also makes mixes for the Fabric series and for Get Physical’s Body Language series.

Albums and style

His 2003 debut full-length for Ghostly International, Leave Luck to Heaven, presents sparse house music with his deep vocals. The album includes “Dog Days”, a track voted one of Pitchfork’s Top 100 Songs of the decade. The record receives strong praise from both dance-music and general music press, including a four-star review in Rolling Stone.

His 2007 album Asa Breed moves away from the club-oriented approach of earlier work, bringing in afrobeat rhythms, pop ideas associated with Brian Eno, and krautrock influences. It also receives four-star reviews from Q and Mojo. After this period, he tours with Matthew Dear’s Big Hands as frontman.

Black City follows in 2010 and draws together years of experimentation into a darker, more playfully constructed sound.

Collaborations and remixes

Dear receives remix commissions from The xx, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Spoon, Hot Chip, The Postal Service and The Chemical Brothers. He is associated with minimal techno, techno, minimal, electronica and synth pop.