M Field

Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM - 2 sets of music
Line-up:
Matthew Field - Guitar
Band TBC
About:
Anyone familiar with Matthew Field will know that staying in one lane isn’t really what he does. As the driving creative force behind Beatenberg, he’s helped shape a whole new music lexicon. Over two albums, the Cape Town-based trio alchemised a distinctive global sound, fusing modern pop production with complex rhythms, lilting indie rock and folk. His work with South African pop maverick Tresor, meanwhile, showed he could take his magpie approach and ear for a winning melody into a whole new sphere.

Music was present from the very beginning. Field’s mother, a visual artist, would play Bach and Mozart while she worked in her studio as he drew nearby. His pianist father later became a jingle writer and began getting Field to help him while he was still in early high school. Though he admits he sometimes complained, the experience proved invaluable. It also gave him access to a recording studio, a place which, when he was there on his own, “became a very free and exciting place for me.”

That rich creative upbringing has helped shape one of the most distinctive voices in modern South African music. Field’s songwriting has produced the country’s biggest ever airplay hit, Pluto, and helped Beatenberg win seven SA Music Awards for their 2014 debut, The Hanging Gardens of Beatenberg.

Now comes a new chapter. M Field places his songwriting in a new sonic world — one that is lusher, richer and even easier to sink into — while still carrying the melodic instinct and adventurous spirit that have always defined his music.