Matthew and the Atlas

When it came time for fifth full-length Many Times, Matt Hegarty needed to try something different. The Aldershot songwriter, better known as Matthew and The Atlas, was keen to follow up 2023s This Place We Live quickly, jumping straight back into the studio at the end of that same year. Tapping up Bears Den member and producer Kev Jones for the challenge, they approached Many Times with a production style antithetical to its title: each song was to be recorded in as few takes as possible, stripped-back and direct-to-tape, with no overdubs.This process, the pair explain, was intended to capture Matts songwriting in its purest form. Recorded over just two days at the iconic Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, the idea was just to capture a moment in time that is very, very honest and open, Jones says. Inspired in part by Nick Drakes Pink Moon (which was itself captured over just two nights).We said to ourselves that I shouldnt rehearse too much, says Matt. Its a balancing act you have to write the songs, and know the melody and the lyrics, and how youre going to perform it. But only up to a point youre still trying to capture something a bit truer to its original form; something you havent over-rehearsed or refined down.Its an approach that was taken to avoid the slow gestation process and over-thinking that Matt openly admits led to the four-year gap between his previous two albums. I definitely tend to disappear into my studio space, he says of previous records, Theres definitely been a lot of overthinking in my home studio, and working on things, and taking a lot longer than I thought.For Many Times, then, it was a total about-face in terms of approach. I really wanted to do the complete opposite of that, Matt explains, and not think about instrumentation just think about songwriting.Capturing those songs in their rawest form led to some of Many Times most stunning moments coming from the most unlikely of places. From the engineer running around the studio mid-take, to re-position microphones while Matt was still in the zone, to rhythmic thigh slaps from Kev during the recording of Standing Here adding one of the records only embellishments and taking the track to a new dimension in the process its a record that thrives on its simplicity. Its because the elements are so simple, the minutiae is massive, says Matt.There was always an element of uncertainty about it, which I think was a good thing, he continues of the recording process. Recording to tape an expensive method in an increasingly digital age gave it an element of pressure, he admits. But despite the pressure Matt might have felt, Many Times feels like Matthew and The Atlas most effortless release in a decade.Youve got nowhere to hide, the songs have to speak for themselves, says Kev of the approach, and its something Matt agrees with. The result is a record which houses some of Matthew and The Atlas most brilliant songs to date.