I am Matt. I live in Northumberland, most of my gigs are in Newcastle, and the hills between the two are where I do my thinking. Sonic Paths is my own project, the one I would do if nobody paid me, and nobody does. Quiet Build, my studio, publishes it.
I have been travelling for music for the best part of twenty years. Not holidays with a gig in them. The other way round. When I first said this out loud I claimed five or six continents, then went back to the map and counted. Europe, Africa, Asia, North America. Four. Never South America, which is still on the list.
In a new city I find the jazz or blues bar before I find the museum. Smalls and Terra Blues in New York, two basements, are two of my favourite rooms anywhere. Kingston Mines in Chicago is another: two stages in two rooms, so the music never stops. Pappy and Harriet's, a saloon in a fake Western town in the California desert, is one of my favourite places in the world. I did not see anybody famous there. Local musicians, a good night, and I will be back for a bigger gig.
- Role
- Founder and editor, Sonic Paths
- Based
- Northumberland
- Studio
- Quiet Build
- Contact
- hello@sonicpaths.co
- @sonicpaths
Africa
I have been to Uganda more times than I can easily count and I know plenty of people there. Richard Odoi, who puts on Underground Kampala's techno nights in random places across the country, is one of them. I love the electronic music coming out of Africa, from Ethiopian electronic to techno and tech house, and Pulse, the African section of this site, exists because I want that scene to be easier to find and easier to grow.
In Addis Ababa I spent four nights of one week at Fendika, an azmari house run by the dancer Melaku Belay. On 23 October 2024 the excavators went through its roof. I have photographs and footage, and I am still devastated about it. The atlas will keep that room on the map with the date it died, because that is what an atlas is for.
The best place I know to dance is B4 Beach Club at Paje on Zanzibar, on powder sand with the tide trying to join in.
Where the idea came from
July 2023. Damien Rice at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on the Tuesday. Ben Harper in a castle outside Verona on the Wednesday. Then trains and buses up into the Julian Alps to Butik, a small festival on the river at Tolmin in Slovenia, which is an absolutely stunning place to dance. Somewhere on that journey it struck me that nobody had joined the two things up: the rooms worth hearing music in, and the travel it takes to reach them. The Mountain Hostel at Gimmelwald in Switzerland, a wooden chalet on a ledge where I only ever saw people playing guitars on the terrace, was the other nudge. It took me a while to build the site. The idea took one train.
This year
Last year was quiet for music. It picked up in the spring. Ludovico Einaudi and then Tinariwen at the Glasshouse in Gateshead, which is on my doorstep. In August I asked the tools I have built to find me a gig for the weekend and they came back with Maribou State in a tent by the sea at North Berwick; I drove up, slept in the van, and the tyre blew out on the way home. A week later I finally saw Moby, thirty years after I first meant to, in the square Christopher Wren built for sailors at Greenwich. In October it was Luxmuralis at Durham Cathedral and then Knats, the night after the Mercury Prize, upstairs at a working men's club in North Shields. Those nights are written up as Visit notes in The Long Listen, with my own photos and video.
What "been there" means
Some rooms on the atlas I have stood in. Those pages get a "Been there" note signed by me as I write them up, and the Visit notes in The Long Listen are written from my own nights out. Most rooms I have not visited yet, and the page says so. You should always be able to tell which is which.
How a page is made
I choose the rooms. A room earns its place on three tests: it is beautiful before the music starts, the acoustic is part of the listening, and music happens there on purpose. A venue's own programme has to show it, and published sources have to back it up. The judgement about what goes in is mine. Every page says when it was last reviewed. No ratings, no popularity scores, no paid placement.
Suggest a room
Write to hello@sonicpaths.co or message @sonicpaths on Instagram. Tell me the venue, the city, and one night you heard there. If I can, I will go.