(ENDE285) Matt Bleak - ...Is Dead.

"A few years ago, I was talking to Matt Bleak and telling him how I was listening to some of his early EPs while I was drinking one night. His face turned up and winced immediately "urgh oh yeah" he said. "It's not that bad" I told him. I said to him that some of them just needed to be trimmed or just sped up even slightly a bit and maybe remastered. he responded "well you can do that if you want"

This became the seed for an idea between us to revamp some of his early material. About a year or so later he announced to me that he was done with the Matt Bleak moniker and would ENDE be interested in a best of. we joked about making it look like a 1980's K-Tel best of due to his age (Matt is nearly 50) and I did start looking into making a cover like that.

But in the end I decided it being his last ever release. It should represent his legacy of work in this music for the past 15 years that I've known him.

There's no other hardcore producer I've worked with or known as well as Matt Bleak. We were both good friends with a lot in common. We had similar families, similar upbringings and both cut our teeth in punk scenes while most of our contemporaries came from rave and techno scenes. We were both among the most prolific producers in the Melbourne Hardcore Scene, We've played each others shows countless times, We hung out with each other and collaborated frequently.

It was our passion for hardcore/breakcore that lead to Matt starting Night Terror Recordings in 2008 - the first hardcore web label in Australia which went on to become notorious for it's high quality releases and vast catalogue of producers during it's 6 year reign.

He also co-founded the infamous Crack Parties in Melbourne (despite his former colleague attempting to pointlessly write him out of it's history in a failed Facebook smearing) which hosted a vast array of local producers, interstate producers and a few internationals like Noisekick and Negrobeat (now Captain Raveman) as well as be one of the launching pads for major producers like Dep Affect and Tymon.

Between 2006 when I first met him living in a delapidated warehouse with a mentally unstable drug dealer to more recent years where he lives in stable accommodation with his longtime partner. To the brief and painful period between 2012 and 2016 where we either both at the same time or one instead of the other were - homeless, living on the street or living in crisis accommodation. To the two brief periods we'd lived together, either in a sharehouse or in the same boarding house while homeless at the same time.

In that time we've hung out in real life or online and spoken frequently about music and production and traded tracks, ideas and WIPs countless times. In my folder marked "Matt Bleak" is about 55 unreleased tracks and WIPs and sound sketches and mini EPs and collections that never saw the light of day.

I told him that as well as a best of he should release some of this shit I have sitting in folders. He winced again and said "maybe". I sent him a list of ideas for a best of and a list of tracks I wanted to rework.

The idea was birthed in 2018 and then forgotten about til 2020. At that time Matt told me he was working on his final ever tracks as Matt Bleak before he changed his style and left the name behind him.

The idea came up again recently and I decided to set a few hours aside to get it done. So instead of a best of it's more of a lost tracks and reworks. So here are a handful of Matt's early tracks revamped and remastered by me as well as unreleased tracks and remixes Matt did and a few of our live produced collaborations from 2013 and the few remixes I did for him when we lived in the same sharehouse in 2014 in Brisbane.

Included is Matt Bleak's remix of Mr. 556a's 'I Kill Ds", The last ever two Matt Bleak tracks he finished in 2020 and some of his ultra short extratone and speedcore tracks that he never released.

So that's it. From messy extratone and speedcore beginnings to a refined and unique hardcore and breakcore style. From a quiet punter standing at the back of the room at warehouse parties to one of the major contributors of the Australian Hardcore Scene. Now living a quieter life somewhere in Europe I'm told and still producing but under a totally different name. Always uncompromising hardcore, breakcore and noise and there's always another pseudonym he's using floating around..

"I want to change my name and start uploading tracks again under a totally secret name so there's none of the notoriety or famewhoring. Just throw tracks out online and see who likes em"

and with that idea...

Matt Bleak...is dead. (2004-2020)

Oh and Matt..I re-edited Anal Horror before releasing it. ;)"

- Boris Otterdam
ENDE Studios Australia
May 9th 2021