The Unheard Mixtapes

2020–21 | New Amsterdam Records

Colorful and abstract album cover art with the text 'Matthew Evan Taylor - The Unheard Mixtapes' and a detailed illustrated face.

Album Overview

Released September 29, 2020 on New Amsterdam Records

Composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor’s The Unheard Mixtapes is a five-part series commissioned by Metropolis Ensemble, His self-described artistic manifesto during the pandemic — was unveiled over five months from September 29, 2020 to January 26, 2021.

Taylor has a long and ongoing fascination with the dissemination of art through underground or backdoor channels, such as zines and mixtapes. He explains that “not only have these methods proved to be effective means of delivering art to people without the focus on commercial gain, but they often give insight into the character and taste of the curators of the material. I see the mixtape, especially as it is used in the hip hop community, as a wholly American (specifically African American) genre akin to the string quartet or song cycle.”

The lo-fi/DIY mixtape ethos is the confluence of a longstanding aesthetic to which Taylor has been drawn. Each album features original art from the team at Juniper Creative, LLC which includes renowned street artist and muralist Will Kasso Condry, his wife Jennifer Herrera-Condry, and daughter Alexa Herrera-Condry.

  • Colorful, detailed illustration featuring a woman with an ornate headpiece, an ostrich, and a mystical figure in the background. Text reads: 'The Unheard Mixtape 1: Follow to the End' and 'Matthew Evan Taylor'. The scene includes lush greenery, celestial elements, and intricate patterns.

    Mixtape 1: Follow to the End

    Mixtape 1 begins a plaintive and epic odyssey in which Taylor explores, and ultimately achieves, the fraught goal of being himself. He boldly states in his notes for the project: “I am Matthew Evan Taylor, a musician who composes; a composer who performs; a performer who improvises. I am all of these things and more. The Unheard Mixtapes are my manifesto.”

  • Abstract art featuring vibrant colors and intricate shapes. The top text reads 'MATTHeW EVEN TAYLOR.' Below, the text 'The Unheard Mixtape 2: Language of the Unheard' appears. The artwork includes detailed symmetrical patterns and a central figure with multiple eyes, set against a mountainous landscape.

    Mixtape 2: Language of the Unheard

    Mixtape 2 begins a plaintive and epic odyssey in which Taylor explores, and ultimately achieves, the fraught goal of being himself.

  • Abstract album cover for 'The Unheard Mixtape 3: Chamber Music' by Matthew Evan Taylor, featuring colorful geometric shapes, detailed textures, and layered patterns.

    Mixtape 3: Chamber Music

    Mixtape 3 is a collection of works, stands as the sole mixtape with overt references to Western classical music. The music however lies in a space that transcends Western classical music, drawing upon the visual, physical, and spiritual worlds in a richly unique tapestry of color, movement, time and space.

  • Colorful illustrated album cover featuring abstract and surreal art with a central face, eye motifs, and decorative patterns. Text reads "Matthew Evan Taylor," "The Unheard Mixtape 4," and "Isolation Blues."

    Mixtape 4: Isolation Blues

    As writer Rick Moody writes in the project's liner notes, "The thing about Matthew Evan Taylor is the emotional intensity of what comes out of him, which is mostly associated with his horn, but not exclusively, at all, because it’s like his every gesture is consistent with the practice."

  • Colorful album cover art featuring a collage of abstract and surreal elements, including a prominent owl, musical instruments, and various faces. The text reads "Matthew Evan Taylor - The Unheard. Mixtape 5: Abstractions in Sound."

    Mixtape 5: Abstractions in Sound

    As composer Anthony R. Green writes in his liner notes for the project, "In Matthew Evan Taylor's Abstractions in Sound, his intimate musical crevices are laid bare for listeners to examine, absorb, intimate. The album, though separated into six distinct improvisations, suggests a journey containing a single path through various terrains, each with their own unique, rich crevices. Suffice it to say, this ultimately left-to-right journey is rife with micro- and macro-wanderings through space and time via musical phenomena: microtonal inflections, multiphonics, licks, vibrato extremes, tone beauty, tone ugliness, the harmonic series, vocal modulations, interruption, saturation, and so much more."

“Matthew reconciled his artistic identity as a classical composer focused on social justice, Black expressive culture, and experimentalism.”

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