Undercurrents by Matthew Young

Drag City and Yoga Records are delighted to return to the music of Matthew Young. Following Recurring Dreams (1981, reissued 2014) and Traveler's Advisory (1986, reissued 2010), Undercurrents (2025) collects eight oddly dissimilar pieces that somehow fit together perfectly. Ranging from heady electronic experiments to earthy hammered dulcimer meditations, Undercurrents is unique enough to be called outsider while still occupying a musical world accessible to fans of many genres.

"It is a rarity that an album has the effect of making the listener question the essence of linear time. Here you are offered incantations, tissue-like layers, faint ghosts in the machine, each listen unfurls something nuanced in the ear. ... This work feels like the unreliable, fragmented nature of memory itself and how instead, like the tides, we ebb, flow, turn and retreat."

— Kirsteen McNish, The Quietus (UK)

"Matthew Young explores a whole range of textures and, by juxtaposing all of his creations, manages to create a third album of great sensitivity with a very intense, dreamlike and experimental density that makes this record truly beautiful."

— Valery John Klebar, STNT (FR)

A graphic designer by trade, and a lover of music at heart, Matthew Young self-released two albums as a young man: 1981’s Recurring Dreams, an album of mediation music played EMS synth and Fender Rhodes, and Travelers Advisory, an utterly unique mix of vocals, hammered dulcimer, banjo, Casio synths, and electronic drums. Both records were reissued by Yoga Records via Drag City in the twenty-teens.