Producer, Musician And Songwriter Soul Island Shares Debut Single 'Ocean'

Italian-born, London-based producer, musician, and songwriter Daniele De Matteis aka Soul Island will be releasing his first single 'Ocean' on the 5th October, taken from the upcoming LP, "Shards" expected for 7th December via Loyal To Your Dreams. The album's mixing and post-production duties were taken on by Italian indie-pop songstress and producer Matilde Davoli (Populous, Indian Wells, Giorgio Tuma and Lucia Manca) and Soul Island himself. 'Shards', the first full-length LP by Soul Island is described as "a collection of fragments of the artist's inner speech on what's intimate but also on what's outside, from subcultures to wider global topics", and after much experimentation and retrospection this talented producer will place his latest efforts on display, ready to embrace his new found calling.

Born and raised in Lecce, the south of Italy, Daniele grew up widely immersed in the local DIY punk and hardcore scenes, before eventually picking up a guitar and taking on vocal duties for a few underground acts, namely his band Room 104, who in 2000, released a 7 inch split collaboration vinyl with another local band, Suburban Noise titled "El sonido de la ciento y cuatro" which propelled them into the now mainstream emo culture. After moving to Bologna for study purposes, Daniele would soon form the trio Thousands Millions, merging his '90s music background with the rediscovery of power-pop acts from the '70s onwards. Along with the '60s inspired beat flavour brought on by drummer Federico Vaglio and bass player Massimiliano Giannuzzi (with whom he also formed the duo Kulledge), the band's sound carries a peculiar electronic and alternative footprint inherited by Daniele's initial experimentations. Thousands Millions went on to release a demo EP and two records for Wynona Records and Tannen Records respectively, after a slow dissolution with Daniele moving to London in 2010 to collaborate and tour with a number of projects and bands. While in London, Daniele worked with Echopark on their 2013 album 'Trees', and folk band Girl With The Gun on 'Ages' 2014, among others. In 2015, the track 'Mother' was released by Bad Panda and the project Soul Island officially started.

With an array of musical influences behind his back ranging from Caribou to Brian Eno, Daniele's expansive palette reaches far and wide to underground and now dissolved acts of '70s and '80s such as Hüsker Dü or Fugazi, although Soul Island's particular sound could be more comparable to a blend of electronica, chillwave, ambient-house and alt-pop, expanding on timbres similarly likened to MGMT, Everything Everything and other uniquely sculpted pop groups of the new dawn.

Soul Island's latest single "Ocean" is a blissfully sweet synth-pop delight; swaying between shimmering synthesizers, lush vocal work, gracefully bouncing between percussive beats and reversed wobbling bass lines, among vast atmospheres drenched in texture and soaked in sentiment.

Soul Island comments on "Ocean": "It's a track about true and false hope, spiritual and together very concrete. It's a call to caring about the earth. I now realize I programmed the synth ARP as water movement with filter sweeps mimicking the tide, or that's how I like to see it."

Listen to "Ocean" here.

"Shards" Album Tracklist:

1. Loser Rev
2. Bleed
3. Neon Vision
4. Ocean
5. Night Shore
6. Soul Drain
7. Perlin Time
8. Lead Out
9. Mother

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