Multi-instrumentalist and producer Matthew Nowhere has just released the widescreen beauty of the album ‘Crystal Heights’: an ethereal collection of eighties-influenced shimmering synth pop that unfurls with a statuesque grace. it is incredible that this is a debut album.
Opening track ‘Transmission’ is an atmospheric melange of sounds and a vocoded voice: a fittingly mysterious alien entry to the album with a heart beat pulse. It is accompanied by various instrumental interludes throughout the album (‘Aquatic Envelopment’, Stellar Enfoldment and outro ‘Crystalline Emergence’)
Second track ‘Love Is Only What We Are’ is like being afloat in a star filled expanse with crystalline guitars piercing the skies on a bed of bubbling aquatic synths – a glorious track: cinematic and threaded through with melancholia as any good pop song should be. If comparisons must be made, there is an undeniable genetic thread to bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and that rich thread of synth bands from the eighties: creating layered soundscapes in which you can lose yourself as if in a float tank. The lyrics evoke a certain sense of aching beauty:
Make it empty and fill it to the top now
Shining this light into empty space
This void it’s never been nothing
It’s always been your true face
The ingrained sense of yearning – exquisite and profound – is certainly reflected in the track. Nowhere says:
This song is really about longing… the deep and sometimes indescribable yearning we all have for love, for real authentic connection. It’s interesting – my job as an artist is to try and harness that longing, and give it shape, sounds, texture. The chorus is then an affirmation that actually, that longing is not a need or a lack… it’s actually a seed that carries with it the possibility of growing into exactly the love we are looking for.
This seeps through every note. The track comes with a video which according to Nowhere incorporates the themes:
In the video, I play with this idea as well. The black and white images of seeds in the first part of the song later blossom into these vivid, colorful, moving flowers. A similar idea is expressed by how inside of the black and white imagery of me singing, there is also this full color version, moving around, roiling, longing to escape and express.
The result is something that is ethereal and evocative:
‘Echoes Still Remain’ is introduced by gently percussion and an aquatic bubble of sounds that gurgle like a stream, delivering a soothing and smooth vocals with a computer like backing. There is a delicious sensuous shimmer to the track; a very much West Coast/LA tone.
Title track ‘Crystal Heights’ is a reflective ballad that seems to coast in the skies with an anthemic flourish over the motorik beat and yearning vocals. The sequenced arpeggiated synth ripples enhance the journey: bright and glittery with a fairy-tale ending.
An extension of the rippling flow is created by the interlude ‘Aquatic Envelopment’ which reflects its title.
‘Transforming’ features another much loved outfit, Lunar Twin. The DNA of the track undeniably contains traces of eighties icons like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Depeche Mode and even a hint of Kraftwerk, but this is not a pastiche or carbon copy: ‘Transforming’ has its own unique glitter and pose that is utterly enchanting and completely immersive. The crystalline synths positively thrum and throb with an organic, rich pulse, arpeggiated and energising. Bryce Boudreau from Lunar Twin’s vocals are deep and enigmatic, adding a Bowie-esque timbre. Nowhere says of the collaboration with Boudreau:
The collaboration with Bryce on this song started with some impressive synchronicity, and the whole process really set the tone for a lot of the ‘Crystal Heights’ album itself. Bryce is incredibly gifted at inhabiting these sonic spaces – and he immediately understood exactly what the song needed and what it was trying to convey. I think working together brought out the best in both of us.
Boudreau adds:
I was swept away by the grandeur of Matthew’s music on this song and immediately envisioned a coastal night world populated by dreamers and drifting souls caught in between the dusk and dawn of coastal neon. The rest of story wrote itself. I’m excited to finally be able share this song.
Lyrically, the track has an aching beauty fit for the music:
Late at night, dreams alive
In crystal heights
Transformed before our eyes
Half awake
The wind and waves
Late at night
In Crystal Heights
The result is something bigger than its constituent parts: a widescreen cinematic wonder that is expansive and thrilling to the core with instruments that seem to shake the very foundations, and a delivery that is bold and vivid. The aquatic sounds bubble and pop with a majestic flow and it stands as a fitting soundtrack to a late night neon-lit scene in a movie by Nicolas Winding Refn.
It comes with a video directed by Zoey Ngyuen in California, who says of the video:
I’ve always been fascinated with the darker side of California’s Beach culture. The fog, the palms… gray May, June gloom… the mysterious people and vibe. This is the visual collage version of my California Gothic dreams.
Boudreau says:
Amazing the different side of California Zoey portrays here. I relate to it a lot having spent so many years living there. It’s like a dream. I love the emotion and images she has used to craft this secret world
‘Have You Ever Known’ is a sparse reflective tune that again has elements of a West Coast/LA sound with its smooth delivery and plaintiff repeated line have you ever known love? The instrumentation and repeated vocals add a dreamy reverie that is hypnotising. ‘Ruby Shards’ shakes you from the reverie with its high stepping pop delivery and jingle jangle sound and anthemic delivery. It’s one of those pop songs that are euphoric – there are elements of Pulp with its soaring chorus that gives you goosebumps.
‘Stellar Enfoldment’ is another instrumental interlude with a little more pep with its rippling beats before ‘Everything’s True’ enters with a dark ominous sparkle. A little more gothic and brooding with a muscular spine, it again has a soaring chorus and scintillating melodies with a yearning romanticism. ‘Silver Glass’ is gentle and contemplative, augmented by delicate harmonies and a slight reggae beat.
Final track ‘Persist3nce’ again features Lunar Twin and introduces the Antonio Family Singers. Boudreau again supplies the dark sonorous vocals with the backing chorus adding a filigree of gold to the dreamy expansive track that evokes late night drives under starry skies. The track weaves its way in the ether, dreamy, psychedelic and slightly surreal, completely immersive and golden.
‘Crystal Heights’ is a revelation: an album that seemingly encompases elements of a Californian sunshine sound with British intelligent gothic synth pop, creating an immersive album that glitters and shines with its anthemic sounds and melodies.
Matthew Nowhere is the moniker for Matthew Lin Packard and he says of his creative urges:
Music to me is literally magic. I am transforming feelings into sounds. And if I’m going to do that kind of alchemy, the feelings I want to share are ones that are meaningful and transformative. Life is wild and mysterious, and it doesn’t always make sense. But the important things – connection, love – are always grounding and I can’t think of anything else I want to focus my life on.
It is an obsession that we are the beneficiaries of: his music is magically rich and luscious.
As vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Matthew Nowhere explores the synth and tape-laden sounds of the 1980s with inspired reverence. Emerging from the intersection of old and new, his unique music weaves deep vibes and poetic lyrics with gritty New Wave beats. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently residing in California’s Nevada County in the forests of the Sierra Mountains, Matthew Nowhere uses authentic analog production styles in creating deeply authentic and soulful music that speaks to the power of love to overcome all obstacles.
Based in Hawaii and Salt Lake City, Lunar Twin have been mainstays on the American dreamgaze scene for many years, this cinematic music duo made of up vocalist Bryce Boudreau and multi-instrumentalist Christopher Murphy. Blending chill electronic beats, soulful downtempo vibes, and poetic lyrics, they create ethereal, hypnotic soundscapes perfect for late-night drives – as evident from their latest 2023 album ‘Aurora’.
Feature Photograph: Anjali Rivera
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