With North Star, Matthew Robert Hunt constructed an interstellar hall between existential rawness and avant-garde elevation. Whereas the distortion-laced vocal refrains drag sparkles of ache from the peripheries into focus, the bubbling textures ship them again into orbit. It’s alt-electronica with a soul too spectral to be anchored. A contradiction in concept, resolute in execution.
Because the debut launch from Hunt’s third studio album, North Star signposts greater than inventive path. It provides type to the immaterial. This isn’t a drift into the conceptual. It’s a managed propulsion into the emotional structure of affection as a guiding drive. The instrumental minimalism is illusory. Beneath the sleek floor lies a strain system engineered by bass pulses and synths that by no means settle into passivity. The whole manufacturing oscillates between gravitational pull and ambient escape, lending a physicality to the metaphysical.
There’s a paradoxical weight to the air inside the observe. The atmospheres are lifted, the intent is grounded. Even with the experimentalism dialled all the way in which up, there’s no alienation. The invitation is obvious: give up to the resonance.
Hunt’s catalogue might resist simple categorisation, but it surely by no means fails to supply immersion. From bass-driven high-energy escapism to the grounding heat of acoustic folks sincerity, he builds sonic worlds that function full-body sensory transport. North Star provides a brand new axis to his sound, one which refracts the sunshine of his most emotionally luminous work.
North Star is now obtainable to stream on all main platforms, together with Spotify.
Assessment by Amelia Vandergast
