Matt DeMello

Matt DeMello is an all-purpose artisinal singer songwriter living in Peekskill, NY. He grew up in northern Rhode Island, where he became active in the Providence noise, hardcore and math-rock scenes through the 2000s before moving west to record his debut album 'There's No Place Like Nowhere' in 2014. Originally released to shrugs from his friends and relatives, the album's synthesizer-derived orchestral arrangements would go on to win DeMello a cult-like following on Twitter among "vaporwave adjacent" audiences. In the meantime, DeMello and a new backing band calling themselves The Significant Looks began cultivating new, more genre-skeptical material for live audiences at the legendary anti-folk haunt at the Sidewalk Cafe in Alphabet City.

In the onset COVID, the Significant Looks were scattered to the winds just as they were finalizing material for their first EP. Meanwhile, numerous offers to perform streaming shows for vaporwave and electronic labels across the world were driving DeMello to develop more esoteric material.

The result became the whirlwind releases of 2021's psych noise Christmas double-album 'Cassandra Abandoned, I & II [Marion's Version]' and 2022's 'Confetti in a Coalmine'. The latter was hailed by blogs and critics as an heir apparent to Zappa, protest music from all eras and the great American songbook.

In 2023, DeMello released 'Jennifer's Appendix, Vol. 7: Reimagining Abbey Road' featuring the Significant Looks' aborted recordings from 2019, when they were performing the eponymous Beatles album in full at bars to make quick money. The recordings reveal the sessions as an opportunity for DeMello to get into the heads of everyone's favorite songwriting team, while paying tribute to the iconic medleys that close second side.

DeMello now leads a backing band going by the monicker of The Dead Space Quintet. He's currently recording a new album of "trap vaporwave beats" with a release date TBA.