Matthew And The Atlas

A five-piece folk band scorched with a sound that combines a woozy, day-dreaming California with a muscular updating of English pastoral folk; the cultured, straw-scratched vocal of Matthew Hegarty backed by tender vocal harmonies and rolling banjo lines.

AK Patterson has been dubbed ‘a woman possessed’, disappearing to a place of fierce enchantment when she sings.

At the heart of each performance is her unique vocal style. One that evolved from her upbringing in a jazz-centric household, and influences from Bjork, Jeff Buckley, Ella Fitzgerald and Portuguese Fado musicians. There is an artful process to her songwriting, which she likens to her previous experience as an oboe maker, “stooped over her instrument, fixated upon the details, meticulously crafting”. Almost as a method actor might prepare for a role, she thrives on stepping into the shoes of characters, testing out their boundaries and mining them for inspiration.

An accomplished guitar and fiddle player, she and her bandmates, Alfie Weedon and Nat Reading, build a rich musical world. Weedon provides backing vocals and versatile double bass playing. He also brings an international suite of influences to the band. Reading’s restless multi-instrumentalism with cello, clarinet or guitar adds textural depth and heightened light and shade to the band’s sound.

AK Patterson’s charged delivery cast against a backdrop of haunting and skilful instrumentation, makes every performance an absorbing experience, sucking you in with melancholic lyrics and then out of the darkness - a burst of savage, unfaltering honesty and release of untamed emotion.