Young musician's sound advice (From Stroud News and Journal)

Young musician's sound advice

STROUD musician Matt Oldfield's debut album, My Own Advice, was released nationwide on TO Music last week.

Matt, who is the nephew of Mike (Tubular Bells) Oldfield, recorded the whole album in a couple of months last year in Stroud's DB Studio.

The album is an eclectic collection of influences: "I've been writing the songs on and off for the last three years," said Matt, "and I've taken little bits on board of all the people I've been listening to: Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young - you know, all those old poets. This album was an attempt to be poetic."

Matt's influences are clearly apparent on first listen to the album, but there's an awful lot more of his own in there. For a start, Matt is blessed with a highly individual growling rock voice and a way with cool acoustic guitar music that compliments it beautifully, most notably on the last five tracks on the album.

He also rocks out to great effect on Lead and Soul and Another Man's Prophecy.

"I got so impatient with waiting for this album to come out, I've already recorded almost all of another one," he said. "And it's a lot better."

Matt's just got a place on a music course at Brighton University, so if he keeps on working at this rate he ought to do rather well.

My Own Advice is available at both Trading Post and Kane's Records in Stroud. "Actually, we've sold out already," said Simon from Trading Post, "but we'll be ordering plenty more copies for next week."