Matthew Dear

Matthew Dear was raised in Kingsville, Texas, and bounced between trailer homes, raised on a diet of country and rock until his older brother, inspired by the developing romance between South Texas and electronic music, gifted him cassettes by artists like Depeche Mode and Nitzer Ebb. His dad was a fisherman and managed an Elk’s Lounge where he played guitar. Matthew moved to Michigan with his parents in 1995 and at age 16 began recording acoustic guitar music to 4-track tapes. In the late ‘90s, he discovered the abandoned warehouse rave scene in Detroit and started making techno music on ensoniq sampler. In college, he delivered pizzas and threw his own raves in the pizza shop basement on the weekends.

Matthew met Sam Valenti IV at a college house party and became the founding artist on the Ghostly International label. Matthew had already brought his demo cassette to the legendary Carl Craig who said he was looking for something more “mind expanding” and encouraged him to keep working on his music. His first release on Ghostly (also the label’s first) was a split 12” with the late Dave “Disco D” Shayman. The title track was called “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit,” which a decade later would be sampled and turned into a #1 International hit. Matthew also helped shape the sound of Ghostly’s dancefloor offshoot, Spectral Sound, with several releases under his techno alias Audion. Twenty years later his music would be released by Carl Craig’s label as the project Brain.

Matthew’s bedroom-crafted debut album, Leave Luck To Heaven, came out in 2003 to praise in the New York Times and a four-star review from Rolling Stone. His Asa Breed and Black City albums allowed him to drift further out, the latter being named Pitchfork’s Best New Music. In 2012 he released Beams to further acclaim and toured internationally with Depeche Mode and Hot Chip.

In 2016 Matthew retired from a life of wanton excess, after years of drug and alcohol-induced malaise.

For his 2018 album, Bunny, Matthew collaborated with Tegan and Sara as well as Detroit’s Protomartyr, and Ricardo Villalobos. Throughout the years he has remixed Spoon, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and The Postal Service and lent his ideas/ears to General Electric, Microsoft, and Ford. MGMT invited him to remix every song from their album Little Dark Age.

In 2021, Matthew released Preacher's Sigh & Potion: Lost Album, a collection shelved from a decade earlier.

Matthew teaches and lives in Michigan with his wife, three kids, three goats, and a dog.