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Released in 2010, nearly a decade into his craft, Black City was a watershed moment for Matthew Dear. A steely noir set that straddled electronic dance and indie rock classification, earning him Best New Music from Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band, the album unlocked Dear's darkest and most engrossing ideas to date. The love-obsessed songwriter of 2007's Asa Breed had given way to a more existentially paranoid entity. Creeping disco tempos, cavernous atmospherics, and strange distortions brought his signature avant-pop sound to a moodier place. Black City wasn't to be found on any map. It was a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives, with flashes of sweetness and hope.

In Black City, nothing is at it seems: leadoff single "Little People (Black City)" is a nine-and-a-half minute disco odyssey, subverting its gleaming electronic lead with eerily giddy backing vocals and cryptic, ominous lyrics ("a frozen wasted heart / has died", "love me like a clown"); "You Put a Smell on Me" is a sordid sex romp set to hysterically chattering percussion and a serrated synth line that will set your teeth on edge; "More Surgery" at first recalls the barely-there Krautrock of Harmonia in its burbling minimalism, until Dear's chanted chorus of "Alter genetics / to make my body glow / I need more surgery / there's so much more to know" sends the track hurtling into a dystopian future.

And yet, for all the foreboding moods on Black City, it's the album's sweeter moments that illustrate Matthew Dear's growing maturity as a songwriter. "Slowdance" is a futuristic lullaby in which Dear articulates a lover's helplessness ("I can't be the one to tell you everything's wrong") over breathy, Arthur Russell-esque cello swishes; the album-closing "Gem" is an achingly simple, reverb-drenched piano ballad that ends with a long, slow fade.
"...it's not too surprising when Dear takes Reznor's ‘Closer’ pulse out for a moonless 4 a.m. test drive on ‘You Put a Smell on Me.’ With Black City, Dear offers a precisely thought-out guide to losing your mind.”
- in Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2010

Matthew Dear toured Black City worldwide with a full band, presenting a unique crossover between electronic and indie circles, landing support tours with Depeche Mode, Hot Chip, Interpol, and later, MGMT.

Matthew Dear's work traverses myriad musical worlds while belonging to none; he also helped shape the sound of Ghostly's dancefloor offshoot, Spectral Sound, with several releases under his techno alias Audion and DJ Mixes for DJ-Kicks, Fabric, and more.

Dear has collaborated with Tegan and Sara, The Drums, Protomartyr, and Ricardo Villalobos and released remix projects with Spoon, Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Postal Service, and MGMT.

TRACK LISTING

1. Honey
2. I Can’t Feel
3. Little People (Black City)
4. Slowdance
5. Soil To Seed
6. You Put A Spell On Me
7. Shortwave
8. Monkey
9. More Surgery
10. Gem