Radio. Someone Still Loves You x

Sharing the journey I've taken across the airwaves

Mar 07, 2025

We watch the shows - we watch the stars
On videos for hours and hours
We hardly need to use our ears
How music changes through the years
Let's hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around ‘cause we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual

— Radio Ga Ga (Queen)

Back in 2017, the world was quite a different place…

Without digging too deeply into nostalgia, or cultivating a critique of the present global state of affairs, I think we can all agree that it’s hard to believe that 8 years have passed as we settle into the arrival of Spring 2025.

I was 29 back then — the transition to 36 has been felt by many parts of my being with great haste. Perhaps writing this piece helps me to process this time that has passed… in doing so, it’s also an opportunity to take a moment to share with you a little history of what brought Sonic Tapestries to where it is today.

The various lives and logos of Sonic Tapestries through the years

I was studying sound design at the University of Hertfordshire. As one of the older students — mature makes me sound like a cheese — I spent a lot of my time tucked away in the library dedicating my time to my various projects, pursuits and assignments.

This whole experience for me was a way of deepening my listening practice, a form of re-immersion, not only from a technical perspective, but also born from a desire to broaden my horizons and discover something new — something that music had yet to teach me. The wider the focus of my lens, the more appreciative I became in discovering new forms and genres of music, and the deeper my understanding grew working with my sound productions.

At the time, I didn’t have a specific goal in mind for what I wanted to do exactly — I had grown tired of making music. Performing, rehearsing, touring, rinsing and repeating over the years had brought me to a creative standstill. A fork in the proverbial road. The thought came to me one night — as precious pearls of inspiration often do — that I should find a way of channeling what was inspiring me into a form that I could put out there into the world.

The name Sonic Tapestries came to me in a similarly divinatory fashion, very much inspired by the work of an artist friend of mine — Tim Zercie — with whom I had spent a great deal of time hanging out and listening to music with at our shared studio space at the, sadly now defunct, Zona Mista in Bermondsey, London.

**Regenbogenscherben** by **Tim Zercie**. Installation view at Barney Savage in NYC

Tim’s cosmic collections of patchwork tapestries (above) draped the walls of our shared studio space and very often influenced my creative ruminations. It was these ruminations that would eventually bring me to radio. After reaching out to the student station of our campus on the outskirts of London, I was offered my first broadcast slot — a 2hr weekly show from 10pm - midnight.

https://www.mixcloud.com/mat_the_dj/sonic-tapestries-1/

My first few episodes were really quite cute…

I suppose you could say I was finding my voice. I was taking my time getting to grips with broadcast studio equipment and working with the sound of my own voice — something that from an engineering perspective is never simple!

I was greatly influenced by radio hosts and programs I was tuning into at the time —

Jeff Conklin

’s The Avant Ghetto on WFMU, ASIP
’s 9128 Live and The Slow Music Movement
were all hugely inspirational sources amongst countless other mentions I could list (NTS, Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space, BBC Radio 3’s The Late Junction…)

A lot of the music that inspired me at the time was centered around genres that I was growing increasingly attached to — the guitar soli movement that grew from the seeds sewn by artists such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho to the modern interpreters the likes of Loren Connors, Daniel Bachman and Ryley Walker — passing by the more psychedelic end of the spectrum — Japanese genre bending experimentalists like Kikagaku Moyo, a lot of Grateful Dead — and on towards being absorbed gently deeper into the cocoon of ambient music.

Each episode brought me a kind of peace that I hadn’t experienced previously from working in a studio environment. It’s true that in our creative pursuits we often charge ourselves with a goal, a mission, a means to an end that forges a tangible result from the flame of our efforts — just being there in that studio alone, watching the fluorescent glow of the studio ON AIR sign deep into the night brought about a comforting presence that I’ve guarded as sacred ever since.

Shows passed, weeks turned to months and soon my monastic scholarly efforts drew to a close. I was fortunate enough to be offered a role as a part time engineer with Resonance FM at their broadcast studios in London — and with this came a new broadcasting home on their roster for Sonic Tapestries.

Working around a team of experienced artists, engineers and producers alongside much better studio gear and equipment, really taught me how to hone in on developing and enhancing the content and production quality of my show.

Connecting with a wider audience undoubtedly helped too. Resonance FM has a very loyal and widespread listenership. I soon learned to start investing more of my time into the following aspects of radio production :

Script Planning — focusing on what I wanted to talk about on air after playing tracks. It was very important to me from very early on that ST created an engaging listening experience, one that didn’t feel too forced and animated, yet remained informative and innovative. This kind of short script prep (example below) helped me to gather and deliver concise info about artists, labels and releases without leaving room for too many shallow comments and fillers.
Transitions — The secret sauce that separates a bad DJ from a good DJ! Listening and experimenting, taking the time to try out new music genres, artists and labels to work in to my transitions between tracks — THIS was an essential foundation upon which Sonic Tapestries was built. This is where the shift from recording my broadcasts live in the studio to pre-recording and editing my shows inside a DAW remotely made a great difference, integrating more processing and effects to dynamically balance my mixes.
A sample Sonic Tapestries episode session mixed in Reaper.
Communication — reaching out to artists and labels directly for promos, exclusives, guest mixes or just to say hi. People love hearing nice things or receiving kind words about their music! I got to know an incredible network of people through just being respectful, honest and appreciative. In an ideal world we’d all be paid to do what we love doing, but the world doesn’t work that way. I’m a devout follower of the mantra — sharing is caring :)

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Spending time exploring these elements were key for progressing and improving the profile of the show. My inbox was soon becoming nicely chubby with recommendations, reflections and the occasional experimental bagpipe dubstep hardcore banger promo — but that’s part of the fun and the great privilege of having a platform that people wish to connect with!

Towards the end of last year, I had the fortune to connect with ROVR Radio — a new- gen music discovery platform offering an anti-algorithm, 24/7 music service with no interruptions or ads — curated with care by a roster of quality curators and selectors.

I’m extremely proud to have been invited into this family. You can check out the first 3 shows via the ROVR website/app or listen to the show here directly on Substack.

I’m always open to listening to new music, so if you have something you’d like to share please feel free to reach me directly here or send a mail to :

sonictapestries(at)gmail(dot)com

Radio. Someone Still Loves You x

Sharing the journey I've taken across the airwaves

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