Team Brick : "Alsatian"

Team Brick is a one man gang and part of the excellent Invada Records Collective, which is run by members of Portishead. I have already posted on the "endtime ballads" of Crippled Black Phoenix and the folk stylings of Joe Volk, from Invada's eclectic roster and now it is the turn of Team Brick.

The song on the video clip above, "Alsatian", is short and simple, but yet strangely compelling. However, listen to his other tracks on myspace and you realise there is a lot more to this guy than meets the eye. "Ichot" sounds almost classical, while "It Must Be Great To..." is just pure avant-noise, before developing into a relaxing guitar melody, albeit mixed with some weird electronic sounds.

The influential Wire Magazine had this to say about his performance at Bristol's Venn Festival:

"Team Brick cuts a gnomic dash as he shambles onstage at the Malcolm X Centre and positions himself behind a tabletop of FX units. With a vocal style that moves between animalistic, highly accomplished but untutored operatic warbling and distorted caterwauling, the artist also known as Matt blends a small electronic organ and a salvaged CD rack into his merry noise-making. Team Brick's joyful noise offers a necessary corrective to the brattish negativity of superficially similar US artists..."

High praise indeed. Team Brick will be playing a handful of dates throughout the Autumn months around the UK. Check his myspace site for the listings.