“….brooding Brit Matt Hales (a.k.a. Aqualung) sounds newly energized on tracks like Fingertip.” 3 out of 4 Stars

People

“His latest album, Magnetic North evinces that new sound; jaunty, upbeat, uplifting and plenty of 'doo doo doos'.

Los Angeles Times

“…this is a show you will not want to miss. An effortlessly intimate set of subtly crafted, organically melodic tunes with openhearted lyrics and spare, mostly acoustic arrangements, Words and Music features some of Hales’ most compelling work to date.”

Boston Globe

“…the album is still predominantly gentle, a little strange, and quite beautiful.….it’s one of the most perfect examples of hopeful longing I’ve heard in music this year.” “….a joyous ode to the pursuit of love.”

Popmatters

“Matt Hales proves to be not just a prolific singer-songwriter from England that makes beautiful meaningful music, but one who knows how to keep the listeners singing along. Hales still nails it with his lusty vocals and the orchestra-esque arrangement.”

Filter

“Expect him to be around for a good long time — a thoughtful, careful composer, musician who is serious about creating music, not just cranking out the albums for the money.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“The album is joyful, thought-provoking and something you’ll want to listen to again and again. Magnetic North is like a brilliant 12-part love song to life.”

Stereosubversion

Thanks! Yeah! You can buy the album here

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/magnetic-north/id366747647

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/14305175/Magnetic-North/Product.html

but be careful, you may enjoy it...

It's going to be odd and wonderful to come back to our fine Island. is it still like it was? Based on the World Cup I'd guess so.

Ah, Great Britain - Baked Beans,Curly-Wurlies,Queen,The Queen,Nice Cup of Tea, Drizzle, Tabards, Custard and So Much More. I can't wait!

See you soon,

That

Matt

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So the new album is out, released, available, released!

(weak cheer). C'mon - you can do better than that! Brand New Album full of beautiful, sad, funny, unusual, usual heavy and light and dark and sumptuous AquaSongs it's called Magnetic North and it's OUT!...TOMORROWWWW!!!!!!!.....

(weak cheer).

Buy it here (on my site)

I hope you like it. I like it.

(For non US and Canadian buyers, we're opening a shop at www.aqualung.net shortly. We'll let you know when it's launch time.)

Then i go on tour to play said songs for you plus favourites old and new.

Krista Polvere from Australia is coming to play too and fine evenings of music and conversation will be had. Dates are at http://www.aqualung.net/tour.aspx I thought it might be fun to have a TOUR COMPETITION because we all love competitions. Here is my competition idea:

Aqualung tour joke competition.

I am terrible at telling jokes. I can never remember any and if I do try and tell one I get all the bits in the right order, often starting with the punchline which is not a good way to start a joke. I need help...

SO. My Amazing Competition goes like this:

1. Buy a ticket to the aquashows nearest to you.

2. Email me at (info@firstcolumn.co.uk) with your favourite joke. Mention which show you are coming to.

3. I will choose my favourite one, attempt to learn it, then attempt to tell it at the appropriate show.

4. The winner also gets Free Stuff and a Special Prize made by me from Whatever I can Find.

5. Yeah!

Ok. So get your entries in and may the best joke win!*

And some news for UK listeners;

Ever since I realised that you could decide what music the piano played and thus discovered the deep deep joy that comes from creating a new piece of music, I had a little hope/dream.

My little hope/ dream was that oneday I would write a song that would magically get out into the world and into people's lives and be special to them the way so many songs were special to me. It took a long time but in

2002 it happened. And amazingly it's happened several times since then. It is a constant source of wonder and grateful cheer

- hooray!

Anyway, the first time it happened was a song called 'Strange and Beautiful'

(my mother-in-law insists on calling it Strange but Beautiful I don't know why...). And now, 8 years later it seems to be having another magical moment in the UK thanks to channel 4 and this:

http://www.film4.com/videos/article/film4s-incredibles

Anyhoooo. Our brave little song is climbing up the uk pop charts and with a bit if help might be a hit again next Sunday. You know what to do!

See you soon!

Matt

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* filthy jokes are fine. Acually unpleasant and offensive ones are not.

After I dropped my son off at school I went for a stroll up in the hills where it is quiet. I was enjoying listening to the birds and their mad singing when a hummingbird hovered over and stopped right in front of me. It was like my own personal nature documentary. It hung there, looking over my shoulder, then it swivelled around and looked straight at me. Then I realised. It couldn't see me. I coughed (I have a man cold which is Very

Serious) and it looked very suprised and flew away.

Then I started walking down the hill and a woodpecker flew over to a telegraph pole right by me. I stopped to watch it (only about a foot away), expecting it to startle, but again it was calm and still and after looking about a bit started pecking away without a care in the world.

So I am invisible to birds.

As SuperPowers go it's pretty pointless. I probably rank down at the bottom of the 2nd division with BadgeMan and TeaLady. But it's something... It's something.

There now. My album is now actually finished. As I suspected, it is called Magnetic North. I am very pleased with it. It's hard to describe. It's like

12 kids who you would never guess were in the same family until you hear them speaking. See? I told you it's hard to describe.

It will be released (from album prison) on 20th April 2010. I believe it will out in The US and Europe at the same time because I am a Global Sensation.

My plan is to share the new songs with y'all over the coming weeks thus driving you wild with anticipation. I will be very interested to hear what you think of them.

I also plan to do a bit of touring. Not too much because touring makes me fat, but a bit. So far we have dates in Canada and North America but we'llbe adding some European dates soon. Here's what we go so far:

April

26 LA Bootleg Theatre

27 San Francisco Swedish American Music Hall

29 Vancouver Biltmore Cabaret

30 Portland Doug Fir Lounge

May

1 Seattle Triple Door

4 Minneapolis Varsity Theatre

5 Chicago Schubas Tavern

6 St Louis Blueberry Hill's Duck Room

7 Columbus The Basement

8 Philadelphia World Cafe Live

9 Vienna Jammin' Java Music Club and Cafe

10 New York City Winery

11 Boston The Red Room at Cafe 939

Feel free to buy all the available tickets. I promise to be good.

Right then, then.

Off I go to pilates (pure rockand roll) where I pray I won't be the only one that farts when we're upside down.

Love and music and birds,

The Matt

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If you’re at all like me, your head is mostly full of pointless rubbish. In my case several simultaneous channels of music – the song I just heard on the radio, a bit of Abba, a misremembered piano piece from when I was 13, the middle bit of a new song I’m writing, a random bit of Boosh – plus the sound of 50 opinionated parrots squawking Endless Rubbish and another 50 copying them just a bit later.
Then there’s a loud voice dedicated to Bad Ideas and Inappropriate Remarks (if you’ve ever had the misfortune to be in my vicinity after some bad drinks, going on and on about my friend ‘Sam Kant’ then you know all about that one…) and finally, like a tiny patch of clean carpet in a teenage boys bedroom, there’s What I Should Actually Be Doing and Saying. Patiently waiting, hands on its hips.

It says:

“This really should be simple enough – just tell the nice people that you’ve finished your new album and it’s coming out in America in October and Everywhere Else in the new year and you ended up calling it ‘Words & Music’ but thanks for all your suggestions, many of which were very strange.
Ok. And if you’ve managed that without being rude, just mention the little US tour and the London show and how people can get a song from the new album if they sign up to the new mailing list. Do you think you can manage that Matt?”

I don’t think so, no.

I’m really very pleased with the new album... It’s a mixture of some old songs and some new songs and a song by Paul Simon. And it’s emotional and candid and funny and friendly. It feels like coming home. I think you’ll like it.

I’ll tell you more about it next time.
Until then have fun, take care and try not to listen to the parrots.

Love from
Matt
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I hope the year is drawing to a close in an elegant and enjoyable fashion, like an expertly judged soiree.

Whilst crunching through the frosty london streets I find myself remembering end-of-years-past: gazing out of the bay window onto the snow-covered front garden of our house in Ireland when I was 5, listening to 'when I kissed the teacher' by ABBA, lost in exquisite melancholy; singing the grand old carols in the choir with my family and friends at midnight mass, replacing the word 'God' with 'Bean' and being frowned at by Wilf the angry choirmaster with the wild eyebrows and the epileptic wife; enjoying a random home-made drink in an unmarked plastic bottle from a complete stranger on a train on the eve of the new millennium, singing 'La Cucaracha as we fought our way to the riverside for the fireworks, losing the powers of speech and movement and being sick in a bin again and again and again and again and again and again. And again. Oh, and again.. sorry Dom. Sorry Kim. Sorry everyone.

So what will next year bring for us all? Good things I hope. Surprising Good Things like finding a bit of bacon in your dressing gown pocket, or discovering that the one you secretly like, secretly likes you.

It's been an interesting year for me. In the first half we released our new album and toured around the world. We had sushi in Alabama and burgers in Osaka, ruined an extraordinary bottle of wine with ordinary cigars (literally AND metaphorically), watched an apocalyptic lightning storm and went in the sea in our underpants. So many adventures and fine times and of course we met YOU. I hope we weren't rude. And we sang the songs and you sang along and we made up stupid songs and you were mystified and you clapped and we were pleased.

Then it was the second half of the year and I got dropped, came home and wondered what to do next. And then all sorts of things started happening and I'm writing and producing and full of energy and music and I just don't know quite what to do with it all. I guess that's what next year is for.... I'll be sure to let you know.

So I wish you a merry. And a happy new.

Take care of yourselves.

With love

"I'm just writing this in order to do something with my hands whilst i wait at the US embassy to have my visa interview. It's boring. I wish I'd brought a book. I nearly brought a book but i thought I'd get a paper and keep an eye on the end of the world but they don't sell papers here. Or magazines. So I'm just doing this. And now I've run out of space but

perhaps i could carry on on this side and that would give me more room. more to write. I must look impressively busy, like a guy with shit to do or perhaps an amazing idea for a book or a song or a film or an invention. or a cure for something. Sadly this is just a big nothing. Like a jar. Maybe i should try and think of something important to write about. maybe the FBI are watching me right now, waiting. Wondering what i Really Mean.....

In the queue outside the embassy was the singer from Keane*. There are always musicians at the US embassy. you can spot them - excitable young bands with great hair and 4 songs and a gruff tour manager, deadfaced professionals on their way to be angry in LA and"

then my number came up and i went and did it. that's all. just sharing....

*we had a little chat. i thought we should because we are connected. not only are we both ladyboys with ruddy cheeks but we have both been made to play john lennon's mellotron by jimmy iovine. which makes us brothers as far as i can see. i'm not sure he knew who i was. perhaps that's for the best.

So. Some Informations:

1.Words&Music by Aqualung (aka me) is coming out 7th October in the 'United' States.
It is available to pre-order here.

2.It will be out in the 'United' Kingdom and various other bits of world early next year.

3.We're making a new website at aqualung.net.

4.it's got a pair of scissors on it.

5.I'm going/coming to America next week and doing a small number of small shows for small people (click the links to get ticket info):

10/9 New York Joe’s Pub
10/10 Brooklyn Union Hall
10/12 Philadelphia World Café Live
10/13 Boston Café 939 at Berklee
10/14 Chicago Schubas
10/15 San Francisco Swedish American Hall
10/16 Hollywood

6.I haven't really performed for a year, so that will be fun and awful all at once.

7.i hope some of you can make it along. it will be nice to catch up.

8. i may ask you to choose the songs i sing at the shows, so if you're coming have a little think about what you'd like to hear. (nb. I specialise in Songs by Aqualung).

That's all i can think of, and my daughter just woke up, and they're cutting down a tree in my back garden, and someone else is installing a new boiler so really, i should go.

love to you,

matt

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