WOMAD

Mathew van der Want

From South Africa

2001 biography:Singer-songwriter, poet, dissident, enfant terrible and pariah – Matthew van der Want’s songs speak to the outsider within. On stage, brutal introspection sits awkwardly alongside self-deprecating, ironic banter. Some sit engrossed, mouthing the words to all the songs. Others don’t know where to look. In 1996, the independent label Tic Tic Bang! released van der Want’s debut CD Turn on You, which, despite it’s subversive content, was produced smoothly enough to afford it ample play on commercial radio and praise from the critics. 1998 saw Matthew join forces with songwriter Chris Letcher on Low Riding, which was nominated in two categories in the South African Music Awards and hailed as album of the year by several journalists. Van der Want and Letcher have finished a second, as yet unreleased, album together called Bignity. In 2001, Matthew van der Want released the self-produced and recorded album Play my Way, the title track of which received heavy rotation on national radio. Van der Want performed in Belgium, at the Dranouter Folk Festival in August 1996. He has performed at the Grahamstown festival twice, in 1999 and 2001 and is danger of becoming a veteran of the Oppikoppi and Splashy Fen Festivals.