When: 7.30pm on Tuesday 18 June 2024
Where: The Strines Nightingale, 105 Strines Rd, Strines, Marple, Stockport SK6 7GE

We’re excited to welcoming Matthew and the Atlas to the Strines Nightingale for an intimate solo show!

Founded by Matt Hegarty, Matthew and the Atlas was borne of the late 00s folk rock movement as he became a regular in the West London scene. It was after playing at the Communion club night that the event-turned-record label released his first official EP in 2010.

Since then, he has released four albums, traversing a range of musical territories from classic acoustic folk, to dramatic synth-laden electronica, and urgent guitar led alt-rock. The common thread has been a songwriting style that marries a subtle melodic sensibility with lyrics full of natural imagery and dark emotional heft – all delivered in his striking and distinctive vocal. In the process Hegarty has quietly built a major cult following in Europe and the US.

On his latest record, Matt travelled to the famous Rockfield Studios in Wales, recording 11 tracks live to tape over just a couple of days. Here he worked with Kevin Jones (Wunderhorse, Jay Anderson, Bear’s Den), and their aim was to capture a moment in time and a sense of place into the recording, with all the magic and intimacy just a lone voice and a guitar can bring.

Tour support comes from Wisconsin duo Foreign Fields. Foreign Fields – aka Eric Hillman and Brian Holl – have spent the last few years actively trying to simplify their lives. In 2022, with the world drastically changing, they realised a desire to do things differently: they sought out joy and excitement. Pulling a live band together with their long-time musical companions Nate Babbs (drums) and Nick Morawiecki (guitar), ideas were shared, songs were sketched in real-time, and they focused on no longer being so precious about their band’s output. The result is What It Cost, the fourth full-length album and a reimagining of all that the band stands for. The album is a collection of ten newly formed songs, buoyed by friendship and the power of collaborative spirit. It’s as loose and free as they’ve ever sounded while retaining the emotive shimmer that has always provided the band’s beating heart.

What It Cost follows a body of work that includes three full-length albums spanning the previous decade. Their all-encompassing 2020 LP, The Beauty Of Survival, was a lush blurring of folk, ambient, and electronica, preceded by 2017’s Take Cover and 2012’s Anywhere But Where I Am. Eric and Brian saw it then, as they do now, as the end of a chapter, the final part of a trilogy where they found answers to the questions they’d previously posed. What It Cost opens up a new chapter of Foreign Fields.

This show takes place at the Strines Nightingale – a lovely country pub, formerly called the Sportsman, which re-opened in autumn 2022. Strines is on the Piccadilly-Sheffield train line, and on the 358 bus route from Stockport to Hayfield. This show will run until 10.30pm at the latest.

Buy tickets now. 

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