About Me/Bio

About Me:

An Historic is the songwriting alias of composer/accordionist/vocalist Adam Matlock, focusing on frenzied and narrative songs with elements of Balkan music, cabaret, many varieties of art-song and American soul and punk. Songs are performed live with a core of solo accordion and voice, and Matlock sometimes gets help from collaborators Nathan Bontrager, Michael Paolucci, Brian Slattery and Carl Testa in realizing the songs in full.

G. Zarapanecko is more personal, less often live. Ambient music with real instruments (as well as computers and keyboards and stuff.) Aiming for dream logic and perception with broad strokes. This alias is gathering together for an explosion sometime soon, and the result has yet to be predicted.

Sometimes, under my own name, I write longer things that are a little stranger. I'm really into free improv and i play with groups like Broadcloth. I'm also actively deconstructing folk music with Dr. Caterwaul's Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps, and playing with a couple of pick up groups. I'll probably be in your band or collaborate with you if you want! Also, I am unhealthily obsessed with plantains. email me at weillwedance at gmail dot com.

Here's the Official Biography:

Adam Matlock works as an accordionist, composer and vocalist, exploring traditional music from Spirituals to Klezmer, Balkan to American Old-time, and incorporates this into various projects as a composer, songwriter, and improviser. He graduated from classical piano lessons in middle school to play video game music and rock tunes on keyboard, and picked up the accordion as a member of the Valley Kapelye Klezmer Band at Mount Holyoke College. He studied music and narrative with composer/trombonist Michael Dessen and flautist Margo Simmons-Edwards at Hampshire college and produced recordings of two short stories with music interwoven into the narration. He began exploring improvisation, electronic music, and long form instrumental and vocal composition after graduating. He further explored narrative, writing dramatic/narrative works that culminated in an opera in two stages between 2012-2014. He began to expand his role as a performer; as a songwriter under the name An Historic in 2009; as a member of the collective trio Broadcloth (with Anne Rhodes and Nathan Bontrager); and with the folk destructionalist group Dr. Caterwaul’s Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps in 2010. Matlock has also performed with Kindred Queer, Anthony Braxton’s Syntactical Ghost Trance Choir, the Yale Klezmer Band and various lineups of the New Haven Improvisers Collective. He has performed in New Haven, New York, Boston, and all over New England, North as far as Halifax and Montreal, and South as far as Atlanta. He also works as a music teacher in the New Haven area.


A few Press/etc quotes:
"...has a virtuoso command of 'wet' and 'dry' accordion timbres, precisely measuring the breadth of his sound, often narrowing his line to a thin horn-like edge. That and occasional echoes of Indian harmonium recall Tony Cedras's accordion with Henry Threadgill..." Kevin Whitehead, liner notes to Mario Pavone's Street Songs
"[E]legantly rounds out a solo set with swoops of accordian and powerful voice." - Diane Cluck, tour blog.
"Lonely and charming...dark and anxious tones interwoven with...conversely chipper melod[ies]" - Inkwell Press, on An Historic, "My Czerny"
 "dreamy, seemingly improvised, complicated songs...quiet & timid person, abrasive & outgoing accordion...the notes fall on your head from up above." - DIY Halifax
 "[O]ne of those goosebump inducing performances and by the end of the song, the entire crowd was singing along to the refrain..."- The Free George
"[L]ayer after layer of his soulful voice singing over top of eastern European and Balkan influenced music. [H]e goes completely beyond the realm of normal songwriting." - CT Indie
"[M]ore sincere about this music than most of the specimens I’ve ever seen...Amazing job" - Razorcake