Is Matthew Dear the new David Bowie?

The two artists are formidable sex symbols, each working to define their singular identities against the backdrop of an unforgiving modern landscape.  They are both fans of chameleon-like transformations of characer (with Bowie recording as David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust ect, and Dear sporting monikers from False, Jabberjaw, and Audion to plain old Matthew Dear.)

However their similarities are more than superficial.  Beyond their innocent boy meets debauchee via sexual androgyny image construction, the two artists have more than a few things in common.  Each sing in arresting baritone, slowly and disaffectedly as if nothing and everything are at stake.  And through their relentlessly modern, otherworldly dance music they leverage the weight of their problems against the weight of the beat.  Both artists implore their listeners to dance the night away, to dance thier problems away.

Bowie, born in the South London borough of Brixton, grew up in the post WWII era when the area was decimated by Nazi bombing raids.  With urban decay as his backdrop, Bowie went on to produce countless hits of flashy swagger cracked by self-aware insecurity.  One of his greatest hits remains "Fame", a startling example of how the modern incarnation of fame is a process of decay in and of itself - ruthlessly taring apart its subject, much in the same way that hyper-modern cities had torn themselves apart.

The new millennium from Matthew Dear's perspective is equally daunting.  His music is the jittery godson of the Detroit Techno music scene - an artistic movement that draws inspiration from the cultural detritus that has settled in Detroit since the manufacturing giants that had built the city into an  economic powerhouse left it to rot.  Dear's music has the same air of self-assured apprehension that made Bowie's music so affecting and enduringly relevant in our postmodern world.

Anyways, the man has a new album out which i implore you all to buy.  Stream the whole thing below

Matthew Dear: Black City by factmag