Matt Maltese - Strange Time (demo)

London is always burning with new ideas and musical strands. Grime’s ascent has been the year’s big story. Rough-edged punk bands like Goat Girl and Shame are piercing through the norm. And on a completely different standing, odd-pop newcomers are disrupting standard form.

Matt Maltese is a 20-year-old musician from South London, who attributes his dreamy, starry-eyed pop with fellow local charmers like King Krule and Babeheaven. ‘Strange Time’ has a melody worthy of sending kids to sleep via a nursery rhyme, but Matt spins invention at every opportunity. Fellow whizzkid Alex Burey is on the production desk, and together they give classical songwriting a new purpose. Think Richard Hawley with a Twin Peaks filter, songs for early hours insomniacs and teens stumbling home from nights that etch into the conscience. Less a scene, more a meeting of minds - London’s free-thinking pop prodigies are collectively pointing forward.