Musician follows his own road to release

Matt Middleton
Matt Middleton
Dunedin's Matt Middleton has been the core of The Aesthetics since co-forming the band in the late 1990s.

Still going strong, he and the band will present tunes from their brand new album Ugly Ambition tonight.

Middleton's been self-releasing music since back in the days when it was best done on cassette tape, and with this release he's following a Dunedin-led trend for bands to put music out on Long Players, or LPs (for those of you who don't remember cassette tapes, long players, or LPs, were thing your parents used, now used by DJs).

He says a local radio DJ put him on to a vinyl manufacturer.

"I met Dave Ager down at Radio One last year; he had just released the new Onanon album on vinyl. Dave was kind enough to put me on to the company who manufactured the stuff, and it just went logically from there.

"Yep, it can be done; your band can now release vinyl off your own steam if you got the funds! I suppose I prefer releasing work myself, but I'm not anti the idea of having work released by others."

Middleton says the album follows on from two releases from recent years.

"If you are familiar with the first two releases, the My Right To Riches LP on Ecstatic Peace and the Off CD, which was on Mental Telemetry, I'd tell you that Ugly Ambition has the raw energy of Off coupled with the crafted songwriting of My Right . . . - a carefully thought-out third album.

"Yep - the 'difficult third album'."

Retaining the DIY recording fashion he's known for, Middleton says the album was recorded pretty close to home in the middle of last year.

"In the garage at my flat, aptly named Riverbank Rooms - it's beside the Leith up in Northeast Valley. It was engineered fairly crudely, as is usually with me, using simple open-source software.

"I've managed to coax a real punchy, crisp and surprisingly big sound out of that computer though. So yeah, basically, we engineered it ourselves."

Middleton says the band up-sized for the recording of the album.

"At the beginning of 2008, The Aesthetics were fleshed out to a four piece - which delighted some and confounded others. Morgan Oliver played bass for us when we hit the Big Day Out, and a lot of his input is on the bonus live CD that comes with the LP.

"Alex Mackinnon was our bassist later on; bits of him are on the CD and a track or two on the LP. By the time we came to record this album we were back to the core trio - myself, Jason Barrett and Malcolm Deans.

"I don't imagine we'll be changing this line-up ever again."

In the years before the Internet was around, Middleton released cassettes through mail order and by taking them to shops.

Now, like many other musicians, he uses the Internet as a tool for distributing his music.

"It's supercharged that process. It's all gone super-luminal! I'm even selling my stuff purely as data, sold online, sent to you as a file online.

"So I don't do cassette anymore."

He's planning a big year, most of which he may not spend at home.

"The tour conceptually kicks off with our LP release party at Sammys on February 27. That's also the official release date for the album.

"There'll be a little delay before we plan to hit the main centers with the LP - maybe June.

"Melbourne and Sydney are also on the cards. We played Melbourne in 2005 and I think we're long overdue for another visit."

Being an online trader, Middleton has a significant web presence.

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