on The Tump, mystical centre of Lundy Island, summer 2004

Ail Fionn matthew

Matthew started off playing a French horn when he was 11. This lasted for eight years. Then, after a brief period of noodling harmlessly on acoustic and electric guitars, he discovered a Turkish stringed instrument called a 'baglama', or (more commonly) a saz. That was 1994. He's hardly touched a guitar since, rather developing his own (not particularly Turkish-sounding) way of playing a saz.

The latter half of the 1990's were spent playing in conjunction with Inge's mandolin playing, and then, together with various members of the nomadic Dongas Tribe, in West Cornwall.

Since 2001, Matthew has been based in Exeter, heavily involved in the local improvisational collective Children of the Drone.

In the spring of 2005, having returned from a 'musical adventure', playing and recording with friends in England, Ireland, France, Spain and Belgium, he launched an 'audioblog' called The Spring.This documents all ofhis current musical activity, but the ongoing project has also involved cleaning up and archiving various lo-fi recordings from his past, mostly under the name A Tiny Window.

In 2006, he started a semi-improvisatory trio in Exeter with Henry and Keith from Children of the Drone, called Orbis Tertius?.  

                           
near Mijanes, in the French Pyrennees, autumn 1995
at the Chelsea Flower show, 2002
Carn Fadryn, Llyn Peninsula, N. Wales, 2002