Fresh from the swirling, technicolor The Blue Elephant and following last year’s detour into the mysterious vaults of KPM library music, London-based Matt Berry returns with Heard Noises—his eighth studio album with Acid Jazz that landed on January 24.
And oh, what a sight for the senses. The lead single, “I Gotta Limit,” finds Matt in a call-and-response with the velvet-voiced Kitty Liv (Kitty, Daisy & Lewis). It’s the sound of a man clawing for redemption, pleading to an unimpressed woman who has, frankly, heard it all before.
Musically, it’s got the strut of Northern Soul, the mind-warp of psychedelia, and the tight, sweat-slicked grooves of a Sly Stone track. A mere three minutes long, yet somehow managing to squeeze in more musical ideas than most bands attempt in an entire album.
Elsewhere, “Wedding Photo Stranger” is a funkadelic trip, drenched in reverb and laced with intergalactic synth swirls, like the soundtrack to a wedding reception where the groom has been replaced by an android with suspiciously good dance moves.
“There Are Monsters” shifts into high gear, throwing Berry and his band into a ballroom of madness, where the walls pulse to the beat, the floor is a giant spinning record, and nobody is entirely sure if they’re dancing or floating.
And then, there’s “Sky High”—a track so euphoric it might actually levitate. Matt’s voice delivers the simple words: “I love you… it’s true.” Meanwhile, a haunted organ lingers in the background, while soaring instrumentation takes the song higher and higher until it touches the clouds themselves. The Doors would be proud.
Where The Blue Elephant was a hallucinogenic sprint through the many shades of British psych, freakbeat, and acid rock, Heard Noises drifts towards the sun-drenched, lysergic warmth of Californian space pop.
As always, Berry is the architect of this sonic labyrinth, playing almost every instrument himself, including guitars, bass, Wurlitzer pianos, Moogs, Mellotron, Vox and Farfisa organs, and a collection of synthesizers.
He is once again joined by Craig Blundell on drums, as well as a constellation of special guests, including Pokerface’s Natasha Lyonne, Eric D. Johnson (The Shins/Fruit Bats), Phil Scraggs (lap steel guitar), Rosie McDermott ( vocals on ‘Sky High’), and, most importantly, the S. Club 60s Choir, featuring none other than Matt’s own mother.
At its core, Heard Noises is a genre-bending record that distills everything Matt Berry has ever done into one gloriously weird, wonderfully unhinged collection of sound.
Check out Heard Noises by Matt Berry on Bandcamp here.
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