Ten years after the landmark release of weezer's debut The Blue Album, one of the most influential records of the nineties, and 5 years after the celebratory Seven More Minutes, the charismatic ex-weezer bassist and front man of The Rentals, Matt Sharp, breaks his musical silence and delivers a sparse, hauntingly beautiful acoustic record.

Five years ago, at the height of his creative output, Sharp mysteriously left the music world. As with his disappearance, so is his return: surprising and courageous. The bold and sensuous sound of his debut solo album with its potent silences and eerie aural textures is worlds apart from the bubbly synth-pop that gave birth to his early success.

It's a beautifully understated record that creates an almost spiritual feeling for the listener, a collection of deeply personal songs, backed only by sparse musical accompaniment, that invite an extreme intimacy and a real sense of honesty.

Leipers Fork, Tennessee is a small country town seemingly untouched and lost in time. It is here, where Sharp retreated to work in the kind of studio isolation unheard of in popular music.

"I received a call from an old acquaintance," explains Matt. "She heard that I'd been looking for a place that was far away from everyone, a place to think, a place to breathe, a place to write and record some very slow and sad music. It was a strange and dark time in my life."

The choral tranquility of Sharp's debut allows for plenty of room for the lyrics to breathe and the words to fully echo in the mind. In the album's opener 'All Those Dreams', a near motionless piano slowly gives way to a dim-lit

instrumentation with Sharp's vocal asking: "Did all those dreams turn out the way they should be?". In 'Watch The Weather Break', the album's centre piece, an atmospheric soundscape surrounds a stream of questions that drift through the loose melodic structure. As the album nears its close, with a sense of resignation, Sharp exhales "For all your sadness searching what can you show?" 'Before You Go' Reoccurring themes of fear, regret, and a search for identity run throughout the album's fragile beauty. There is a rare thoughtfulness here that is its own reward. Matt's solo debut is the sound of a man standing outside of the shadow of his early pop success, someone who is comfortable in his own skin, someone who does not pretend to have found the answers, but has discovered a joy in finding his own voice.

» Matt Sharp will play an exclusive live set at ®EDUX in Spitalfields on the 11th November ably supported by his pals Goldenboy and quite possibly some of his former collaborators from the Rentals!

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