CMJ Marathon Runner Alex’s day #2: Matthew Dear + out of town bands

Day two down. My musical journey started at Santos Party house with California based Evan Voytas and Tamaryn  – read the report on our West Coast branch here. I then decided to change gears and check out Worcester natives, DOM – check out my review on The Deli’s New England site here.

I decided to head over to the PureVolume House – CMJ’s artists’ lounge behind the old CBGB’s – to catch the second half of NYC-based Matthew Dear’s set. Dear has been around for quite some time, but I have never really listened to his electro-dance heavy music before – I figured this was the right place to give it a try. While at first his music sounded like a cheesy spin off of Depeche Mode, it’s actually deeper, and cooler than that. There are textures to his music, lots of melting movement and energetic transitions – there’s that Brian Eno sense of mechanical prescence. You can tell Dear’s been doing this for awhile, trying new things, testing the waters. After Dear finished his set, the San Diego-based surf rock punks Wavves made a surprise appearance – read the review on our LA site here.