Meet Matt Sabine

Smoke, heat and compelling rhythms. This miasma of tactile sound is what makes a Sabine show. The architect of their gripping performances is a man: Matt. Sabine is his surname. The local Grahamstown musician is the mind behind the murky dance music of his band. Sabine consists of vocalist and songwriter Matt and Danielle Durandt on keys.

 

Meeting Matt for the first time was nerve-wracking to say the least. To me, he was a smoke shrouded enigma whose time I feared I would waste. Upon entering his home, I was offered a generous brandy and coke. Just as well. But as we sat and talked, his gentle and soft-spoken nature surprised me. He talked passionately and at length about his music, always harbouring a friendly demeanour. In the home he shares with his partner, their menagerie of rescue dogs happily yipped away in the kitchen. He crafts his music from the home studio, piled precariously high with retro recording equipment.

 

The evolution of Sabine certainly has unconventional roots. In 2013, Matt resigned from his full-time job as a school music teacher to formally pursue this project. But long before then, he had been musing and developing his unique sound. He worked tirelessly from the get go and as a result Sabine had its first live performances over the National Arts Festival of 2014. Initially, Matt did not see himself as the band’s frontman, as he did not think his voice suited the sound he had in mind. However, due to logistical and financial restraints he forced himself into the front line. Although the band currently consists of him and Danielle, there have been other members over the years and he hopes to incorporate other musicians to the line-up in the future.

 

Throughout the writing process, Matt aims to capture a feeling and convey it through his music is as sincere a means as possible. This requires an incredibly “personal marriage of lyrics, vocal delivery and music that come together to capture the essence of what is being felt”. Part of the allure of Sabine’s music lies in its negotiations of intimate and vulnerable topics through the context of driving, dance music. This means that the music doesn’t lose touch with the very human sentiment that Matt is concerned with portraying. In the thickness of the smoke and the metallicness of the synth, the intimacy of his lyrics is palpable. He meanders through the audience, reaching out and sharing this personal experience with them.  

 

Matt draws from his observations of the self-destructive element of human nature and feelings of despondency in the crafting of Sabine’s music. He identifies some of the darker themes notable in his music as the result of an “unspoken tension between people that we are often too proud to admit we feel” and pain from unrequited love. He describes his music as quite pessimistic and this is particularly tangible in his reference to darker patches in his life where he says he gets his best material from. “I don’t sit down to compose, I find thoughts and songs ... and I try to capture them along the way”. Nonetheless, Matt wishes to address some of the more painful and profound subject matters he is inspired by without creating an atmosphere exceedingly brooding and devoid of any enjoyment. And he achieves this in the context of driving dance music that compels his audience to move freely through the heaviness of smoke and rhythm that permeate his shows.

 

Much of his knowledge and experience as not only an adept musician but stage performer comes from his musical training. Although trained in classical music, Matt’s first musical love - and constant point of reference - was Jim Morrison and The Doors. He heralds the power, performance style and delivery of Jim Morrison’s music: “The amount of imagery and complex illustrative that that band is able to deliver is a powerful source of inspiration.”. This, combined with a love of eighties new wave like Depeche Mode, helps Matt shape not only a multi-faceted musical result but also aids him in crafting his own stage persona.

 

Matt uses the quiet, serenity of the small city of Grahamstown to clear his head. During one of our many encounters, he took me to some of his favourite spots. A scrap yard not far from his house is a common location. It is cramped, rusted and filled with a confused mess of old computers, timeworn metal and inexplicable oddities. Matt has a true affection for old, abandoned relics - in particular aged pieces of technology. In the scrap yard, he traverses pikes of rusted steel to reach a pile of deserted computers. He nimbly ascends the pile and gazes down admiringly at the pieces of technology whose functional value has long been replaced with nostalgic. His rummage yields something for him to tinker with and he heads off. After that, he stops at the abandoned power plant on the skirts of Grahamstown to scout it out for a music video. In a place like this, he draws a lot of inspiration from the aged and worn aesthetic as well as the emptiness of its large cavernous rooms where rauchhaus machinery once powered the entirety of the town. The final stop on this excursion is to watch the sunset from the Cradock road leading out of town. Beneath a warm, purple-tinged sky, he admires the isolation of the weathered landscape around him.