“So good... So beautiful... So pretty” Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 1
“Matthew Frederick should now be recognised as one of Wales’ finest songwriters and performers” New Sound Wales
Matthew Frederick fuses an early love of classic singer-songwriters with more recent influences to create a distinctive and timeless blend of Misery Folk, ballads and blues, plus a touch of Cymrucana thrown in for good measure. With headline shows in the UK, Europe and US under his belt, as well as fronting BBC Introducing favourites Climbing Trees and indie-folk duo Hazel & Grey, the Rhondda Valley musician has released six albums, one mini-album, two EPs and seventeen singles to date across a number of projects since his 2012 solo debut Venus & Mars, with tracks being picked up by the likes of Netflix, Sky and ITV among others. Alongside numerous festival (Green Man, The Hay Festival), television (BBC, S4C) and radio (BBC Radio 1, 6 Music) appearances, Frederick has also recorded at London’s iconic Maida Vale Studios, performed with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and was shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize after the release of the Trees’ much-anticipated and critically-acclaimed second album Borders, the follow-up to their ethereal 2013 debut Hebron.
Spawning five singles in total, Frederick’s first solo studio album Fragments - a record on which he plays each and every instrument - was released via Staylittle Music a fortnight into the UK’s first Lockdown. Country-tinged lead single Tell Me was playlisted by the BBC as well as gaining airplay from Amazing Radio, while the late-summer haze of Hay-on-Wye quickly became his most-streamed track online. The delicate nostalgia of piano-led Pink Blossom Snow was followed by an ambitious quest to find every Laura Jones across the globe, before fifth and final offering Leave The Light On rounded off a rather unusual 2020 with a first BBC Radio 1 solo spin courtesy of fellow Welshman and new music enthusiast Huw Stephens. An eventful 2021 witnessed the long-awaited return of Climbing Trees with standalone single Troubling Times, as well as a spontaneous sixty-six day expedition which saw Frederick become the first man from Penygraig to walk the coast of Wales. He rounded off the year on keys for Martin Carr of The Boo Radleys, with nineteen dates across the UK as part of The Charlatans’ 30th Anniversary Tour, stopping off at a sold out Brixton Academy along the way. 2022 saw Frederick take The Belated Fragments Tour across Wales for his first solo shows in two years, with the Trees following suit in 2023 with a fifteen-date tour accompanied by long-lost single Middle. After recently dipping his toes into the classical world with a performance of original piano compositions at the inaugural Gŵyl Morfydd Owen Festival, Frederick is currently writing and recording both Hazel & Grey’s debut record and the follow-up to Fragments, with a run of shows in support of forthcoming single and long-time live favourite Obsolete, fittingly set for release on limited edition floppy disk this Autumn.
