Matthew Dear / Daniel Bell / Ejeca / Heathered Pearls

Depending on whom you ask, Matthew Dear is a DJ, a dance-music producer, an experimental pop artist, a bandleader. He co-founded both Ghostly International and its dancefloor offshoot, Spectral Sound. He's had remixes commissioned by The XX, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Spoon, Hot Chip, The Postal Service, and Chemical Brothers; he's made mixes for Get Physical's Body Language and the Fabric mix series. He maintains four aliases (Audion, False, Jabberjaw, and Matthew Dear), each with its own style and distinct visual identity. He straddles multiple musical worlds and belongs to none—and he's just hitting his stride.

Matthew Dear's 2003 full-length debut, Leave Luck to Heaven, is a suite of sparse, wickedly funky house laced with Dear's deep, distinctive vocals, and includes the much-loved single "Dog Days" (voted one of Pitchfork's Top 100 Songs of the Decade). The record was met with rapturous acclaim from both the dance-music establishment and the critical press, including a four-star review in Rolling Stone. The 2007 follow-up, Asa Breed, is a considerable departure from Heaven's dancefloor excursions, incorporating the polyrhythms of Afrobeat, the irreverent pop sensibilities of Brian Eno, and the austere beauty of Krautrock. More four-stars reviews followed (Q and Mojo magazines), and Dear subsequently began touring with a live three-piece band, Matthew Dear's Big Hands, in which Dear acted as frontman, commanding the stage with a Bryan Ferry-like swagger and a gentleman's grace.

Today, Matthew Dear finds himself in a unique position. His highly anticipated third album, 2010's Black City, is the culmination of years of hard work and experimentation, a darkly playful sound-world that envelops the listener like the arms of a malevolent lover. After over a decade of exploring pop's outer limits, Matthew Dear now inhabits a rarefied corner of the musical universe: no longer tethered to any one genre, respected by his peers, and blessed with a bottomless well of creative energy. Now is Matthew Dear's moment, and it sounds like nothing else.


Daniel Bell (born 1967) is an American minimal techno DJ. He was born in Sacramento, California, but grew up outside of Toronto, Canada, and later moved to Detroit where he collaborated with Richie Hawtin as Cybersonik for three years on Plus 8 records. In 1991, he started his own label, Accelerate, where he released a string of influential releases as DBX.
Bell was influenced primarily by Chicago House as well as the works of the minimialist composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. His productions are characterized by minimalist house grooves accented by blips and bleeps. Some tracks feature bizarre voice effects and eerie atmospherics such as 1994's delay driven "Losing Control".
Bell moved behind the scenes to set up 7th City Distribution in November 1994. Smaller U.S.-based techno and house labels required distribution overseas and domestically and 7th City moved in to fill this void. However by 1998, the number of active, independent techno labels in the U.S. dropped significantly and Bell closed the distribution company. In 2000, he relocated to Berlin, Germany, and released his first mix CD, The Button-Down Mind of Daniel Bell, on Tresor Records. 2003 brought a follow-up release on Logistic records, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back and soon after a retrospective was released: Blip, Blurp, Bleep: The Music of Daniel Bell'.


EJECA may be based on the outskirts of the nu-house music mecca of Belfast, however his musical roots have been firmly planted from an early age being brought up on 90s garage house. Experimenting with many genres like disco, garage, deep house and techno his trademark vocal driven emotive sound flows in all of his productions. 2012 will see him release on AUS Music, Saints & Sonnets, W&O Street Tracks, Future Classic and more . With support on BBC Radio and from luminaries as diverse as Erol Alkan to Jackmaster to Sasha, the right heads are taking notice, it's time you did too.


"Unlike some ambient music, Loyal, Polish-born Jakub Alexander's release under the Heathered Pearls moniker, embraces the idea of melody with understated but distinct sounds emerging from the loops Alexander uses to construct his tracks. Pitchfork says lead single, "Beach Shelter," "feeds off the same kind of unsettling ambience as Tim Hecker'sRavedeath, 1972, where the sense of a malevolent force lurking just beneath the surface is prevalent throughout. It's filled with coarse, sandpaper-y textures, all pulling together to create a sense of quiet abrasion.""