A true shapeshifter of styles and mediums, Matthew Dear is an artist through and through.
Dear grew up in a small Texas town with a musician father who skillfully played guitar and sang in local bars, lounges and Elks clubs. His father’s frequent after-dinner performances for the family, gigs around town for the general public and humble stories of meeting legendary figures like Joni Mitchell and Jim Croce in the early stages of their careers made music seem attainable and worthwhile to his impressionable artist-to-be son.
“I saw it as anyone can do music. He never forced it on me, which was great,” Dear said. While his dad never forced music, Dear felt a strong influence from his dad’s abilities.
“But then technology showed me a new way to do what he was doing myself.”
That early interest in technology and music-making gained considerable steam when he moved to Michigan as a teenager and started absorbing the Detroit-area culture.
“I started hearing about these events that are going on and noticing there’s way more electronic music on the radio,” he said.
Instead of rock and country popular in Texas, the landscape was now hip-hop and R&B and late-night fast music with sped-up samples of techno and Kraftwerk.
That newfound obsession with synthetic and electronic sounds led Dear to meet longtime friend and collaborator Sam Valenti after Dear performed at a party while both were attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The two went on to cultivate a creative community which eventually led to the formation of the record label Ghostly International, which Valenti still operates today.
“ We’re all going to work together because we have a similar approach and vision toward this industry and this lifestyle,” Dear Said. “We always feel like we find brethren and community and people that don’t necessarily feel they know how to do the thing like anybody else is doing it.”
Soon after the formation of Ghostly International, Dear emerged as a favorite of the minimal techno scene during the early 2000s and over the years has maintained various aliases (Audion, False, Jabberjaw, and Matthew Dear), each with its own style and distinct visual identity.
The xx, DJ Koze, Spoon, The Postal Service and The Chemical Brothers are just some of the artists that Dear has produced and remixed tracks for throughout his career. He has also toured the world over as a DJ, live performer, and collaborator with major acts like Depeche Mode, Interpol and Hot Chip.
Through it all, Dear has maintained a fascination with technology that serves as a never-ending well of inspiration. That goes for his music and more recent ventures into visual art, which lured him in after having kids and getting down on the floor with them to draw and paint.
His approach is to use new toolsets as they come out.
“It’s like Rosetta Stone,” Dear said, “you’re trying to figure out what vocabulary, what prompts make it do certain things. They’re not always repeatable.”
That process can look like hours of noodling on an arpeggio with a synthesizer or software, radomizing his inputs and turning knobs until he hits something that resonates.
Then all of a sudden it’s like “That’s it! Push record!” he said.
Whether hosting an art gallery of his own creations, rocking a dance floor during a DJ set, performing solo singing his own material or surrounded by tens of thousands in an Italian colosseum, Matthew Dear is forever looking to connect with his audience, his fans, his community. Dear co-headlines The Mangy Moose in Teton Village with NALA as part of the Full-Send Winter party presented by Echo Productions on Saturday, January 11. More information at mangymoose.com.
To hear more about Dear’s unforgettable compliment from a rock ’n’ roll legend named Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, listen to the full interivew above.
