An omnipresent stakhanovist sending us his transmissions from the distant future, Matt Hart had warned us: his album Below the Terra, Pt. 1 released in 2022 was waiting for a sequel. A few singles got us in the mood and the diptych is now complete: we can fully plunge into his post-apocalyptic universe, in the year 3808 to be precise. Planet Earth is frozen, machines have taken control and the remnants of humanity are digging beneath the surface to get closer to the core and find a little warmth.
Let's start by noting an amusing detail: whether you speak English or German, the name Matt Hart can evoke hardness or heart, which fits quite well to the character and his work. The first track, Outlaws of the DDC, takes us by surprise with its gentle tone, its synthesised layers almost warm and reassuring with their retro-futuristic touch: could there be a glimmer of hope in the middle of this desolate, icy world? In the event of another Ice Age, Matt Hart found the solution: make us sweat like crazy. He's taken EBM's minimalist, aggressive structures and added a whole host of influences (industrial metal, aggrotech, techno...) to create a succession of catchy anthems that are both physically and mechanically effective, moving both the body and the pistons.
While Rotations and Black Abyss have been lodged in our eardrums for some time now, Matt Hart has a few other dystopian assaults in store for us, combining intensity and narrative immersion (Rails, Deep Down City, Fear the Hybrid). But it's perhaps when the rhythms slow down and the music gets heavier that we prefer him. Terraform has the unforgiving heaviness of a machine that can't be bent. Barricade, with its martial riffs and sinister vocal lines, imposes a palpable threat. These passages exude the melancholy of the survivors, between dreams of forgotten times and promises of a future that may be less nightmarish.
If you're looking for a cure for global warming, there's Matt Hart. Are you too cold? Well, dance now, there's Matt Hart. A jack-of-all-trades, the London artist breathes his soul into dehumanised electronica while giving us something to beef up our playlists. Hardness and heart, we tell you.
