A British-Canadian songwriter who turns wry, doomy piano ballads into viral chamber-pop moments.
MOODS · wry · melancholic · cinematic · piano-driven · dryly comic · introspective · chamber-pop · late-night · bittersweet
BIOGRAPHY
Matt Maltese, born in 1995 to Canadian parents and raised in Reading, England, studied Creative Musicianship at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance before building a career as a singer-songwriter and producer. He began writing songs as a teenager and moved to Camden after funding himself through buying and selling vinyl.
Signed to Atlantic for his 2018 debut Bad Contestant, produced by Foxygen's Jonathan Rado, Maltese went on to release Krystal in 2019, Good Morning It's Now Tomorrow via Nettwerk in 2021, Driving Just to Drive in 2023, and a reworked covers album, Songs That Aren't Mine, in 2024. He also composed music for a Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Twelfth Night and runs his own label, Last Recordings of Earth.
WHY THEY'RE COOL
Maltese's blend of indie pop, indie rock, and chamber pop draws on avowed touchstones like Paul Simon, Nina Simone, and Leonard Cohen, alongside newer folk influences such as Vashti Bunyan and Father John Misty. Bad Contestant earned rave reviews and a spot on NME's list of the best debut albums of 2018, while Krystal won over outlets including NME, NPR, and Line of Best Fit. His song 'As the World Caves In' became a genuine streaming and TikTok phenomenon, pushing his darkly comic, piano-led songwriting to an unusually wide audience for an artist of his scale.
GEORGE'S PLAYS
First time on the station.
PLAYED ON WOKE1
