MATTHEW O’NEILL
Through to Us
Panther Mountain
OUT OCTOBER 16
LYDIA KRUMPER // PUBLICIST
AVA KELLY // PUBLICIST
Through to Us marks a thrilling new chapter for Matthew O’Neill as a musician, as well as a full-circle moment in his lifelong journey of communicating with the world around him. These ten songs—which deftly and seamlessly merge field recordings with a range of instrumentation that includes synths, piano, and upright bass—possess the tactility of running one’s hand through an open stream, as well as an immersive feel not unlike your field of vision adjusting to the luminous darkness of nighttime in the natural world. Through to Us represents O’Neill drawing from his relationship to indigenous tradition as well as natural co-habitation, resulting in a series of sonic tapestries that are truly transportative while serving as a reminder of the magic contained in the world around us.
This latest work from O’Neill is the result of a musical journey he’s been on since a child, specifically emerging from a transformative experience as a teenager backpacking in the Southwest with an uncle from the Yurok tribe after his father’s passing. ++++( “It was an incredible spiritual and mystical experience that awakened me,” he recalls. “From that point on, I needed to communicate and relate to the world through sound and music.” As O’Neill emerged into adulthood (as a teen?), he became involved in the Philadelphia DIY scene and regularly organized benefit shows for groups like Amnesty International, all the while maintaining his connection to the natural world in the Catskills.
His last full-length, the more traditionally song-based Ancestor's Wheel from 2024, was recorded live in Topanga before the finishing touches were put to tape in his timber frame studio—a space which inspired the more experimental direction reflected in last year’s REENTRY EP as well as Through to Us. “Now that I had a piano and the space to play with resonance, I started making these funky electroacoustic pieces that were playful, but also very expressive,” O’Neill explains while discussing his exploration of modulated synth sounds and field recordings. “I was discovering all these deep-seated feelings that I've always wanted to express musically were in my hands through diving into synths. I was in conversation with the soundscapes, and the experience felt very authentic in regards to my voice and where I was coming from.”
Through to Us is also the result of O’Neill’s lifelong engagement with indigenous musical ontologies, which he describes as a “lifelong practice.” “It's central to maintaining balance as a culture and a person,” O’Neill explains. “The biggest part of my practice over the years has been creating music in reciprocity with the land and all the life around me. There's absolutely no consideration of the human world. It's a circle of relationship-building and creating through listening.”
And this practice extends to the foundation of his Panther Mountain label, which Through to Us will see release through, alongside catalog titles like 2020’s Music for the Mother, the first-ever collection of recordings of ancestral songs from the Kogi and We’wha tribes as its inaugural release. “If I believe how important music is for maintaining this cultural resilience in my relationship with Earth-based culture and creating positive futures, how can I help amplify indigenous ways of sonic being?” he reflects while discussing the label’s mission.
Although Through to Us counts several human collaborators, including Holden Acosta on upright bass, many of the contributions across this record are from the natural world itself—from varieties of birdsong and the low croaks of bullfrogs to the restorative sounds of rain. “It’s about giving voice to the voiceless,” O’Neill says while discussing these interwoven field recordings. “These are marginalized voices that I'm trying to amplify and present new ways of listening to them. It's not an extractive process. I’m here in this time and place with all these beings, and this is happening—and it's amazing what happens when you show up in that way. Your presence is open, and active listening becomes a very potent part of the process.”
The album was recorded across the last year, following the dissolution of a marriage that caused O’Neill to zero in on the act of rebirth and reflection. “There were a lot of new versions of myself that I could inhabit,” he says. “I was renewing myself—who I was, who I've always been, and who I want to be.” Much of Through to Us was recorded in his woodland studio with the windows and doors open, allowing for full communication with nature as well as mixing in-the-moment field recordings with live music: “If I was working on a piece and it needed something, I’d hike up on the mountain and bring my recorder, and I’d find what I was looking for. I kept an open ear to discover what the music needed.”
The swirling and dramatic “Descent,” true to its title, reflects a literal descent from a mountain, while the coruscating waves of sound captured on “Ferocity Required” represent a direct line to his background in noise and rock music; elsewhere, the shimmering and shape-shifting title track has began (?) with a soundscape he responded intuitively to in his studio, with additive contributions coming through in the act of reflection. ”As it unfolded, the sounds came together while articulating the feeling and presence of the moment,” O’Neill recalls. “I was journeying into imagined realms while recording it.”
Despite its distinctly nocturnal ambience, O’Neill refers to “Owl Lit” as a lighter-sounding moment on the album, its darkly-hued synth waves illuminated by the hum of evening sounds and rustling wind. “It was shaped by the spiritual and emotional atmosphere of summer nights, bodies of water, and the nocturnal life of the mountains where I live,” he explains while discussing the track itself. “It was developed through sustained listening at particular places where I encountered owls and beavers in the forest. It carries the feeling of sharing those encounters with a loved one, and a sense of being together within a living landscape.”
“This album captures where I'm at with my artistic practice as well as where I'm going,” O’Neill continues while discussing how Through to Us represents a new emergence within his artistic self. “I'm committed to site-responsive music that's created in this way, as well as how I can develop a body of work through long-term engagements with locations. I hope it helps people remember ourselves as part of the land and the waters, and encourages them to create new worlds and positive futures that are in collaboration with nature.” Indeed, Through to Us is a stirring and altogether moving evocation of the things the modern world takes for granted, as well as a reminder to slow down and appreciate the stillness that we gratefully coexist with in this world.
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