Solaris is the sound of an artist adding colors to their palette. Brady Matteson has always been one to experiment, but where past projects have felt more monochromatic (which is not to say they are worse—rather, they reflect different moods), Solaris finds him expanding his already impressive sonic vocabulary with new textures and shades, making for his most expansive album to date.
However, to be expansive isn’t necessarily a virtue in its own right; many artists sacrifice focus for the sake of covering a lot of ground. Thankfully, Matteson doesn’t fall prey to this type of overambition. Over its four tracks (though it’s intended to be listened to in one sitting), Solaris never loses itself in reaching for new sounds. In fact, its reaching for new sounds in a way that feels focused and organic is one of the defining characteristics of the album.
Yes, Solaris takes a few unexpected left turns (for which I am a sucker), but never at the expense of the project feeling like a cohesive whole. It is always decidedly Matteson’s sonic world, and we are lucky enough to be allowed to walk around in it for 45 minutes.
I had the pleasure of asking Matteson some questions about the album, how he thinks of titles when it comes to ambient music, and the process of ambient composition.
For those who may not be familiar, what is ambient music?
To me, “ambient” music is not necessarily defined by one trait. There are a lot of traits and colors that can be called ambient. You can either treat it as background noise or put your attention towards it. It is a mood, a created space—it is just like any other form of music, and for me, it is a meditative state. Ambient music can be a very powerful sonic weapon when wielded that way; it can command attention or it can permeate a space and “disappear into the bushes” so to speak.
I feel like for many people, it can be hard to wrap their heads around ambient (or any instrumental) music communicating ideas or themes. What do the titles of these tracks mean to you? And how does that relate to what the music is trying to communicate?
I treat the track titles like my own interpretations of the pieces, like a title for a painting. I feel like the last few releases I have done have been very somber and morose—this feels like letting a bit more color back into my life. I have immense gratitude for where I am right now and am proud that I’ve been handling the harder things with a clearer and more level head. With that, there’s a feeling of a more “positive” reflection, whereas on previous albums there really wasn’t; I was still in the trenches, so to speak. It helps to be through whatever’s going on first before processing it. When your house is flooding, you don’t go, “Oh, this is gonna make for a great album.” You fix the house first!
I feel that reflects in the music, even if instrumental. I’ve been fascinated by music without lyrics for a long time, and I think it can oftentimes be more impactful than music with lyrics. I think as long as whatever the music is doing, if it scratches that itch, if it impacts you in a certain way, it doesn’t matter if you can sing along to it or not.
It seems like the focus for you is much more on how the listener experiences the music for themselves rather than you having something specific to communicate to them through it.
I personally don’t want to tell people how to listen to the album, but I like to provide a “puzzle” of sorts, and the clues to some degree feel like they are always in the titles. My favorite kinds of albums are the kinds you can keep putting back on and getting something new out of every time. I feel like I’ve been on a stride of accomplishing that with these last few albums, the end goal wasn’t to be purposefully obtuse but I think subconsciously I wanted to make something that challenged me more than anyone else. I like to think the answers are in there somewhere, but I leave that up to the listener. Writing it as one big piece made it difficult to divide it up into what felt “right” as its own sections of the album.
What was the process of breaking up this continuous piece like? How did you know when to transition to a new track?
To provide a bit more context: these pieces were only barebones skeletons before I finished them—just programmed raw synth pieces on the Strega and the 0-CTRL. At the time of writing (between late 2024 and early 2025), I was quickly approaching the release of my seventh record, Sirens From Monoliths, and I felt a bit lost.
I had a pile of material that I didn’t know what to do with, and I didn’t exactly know what felt “right” as far as a follow-up, if I was going to make another album, if the well had “dried out” on this particular phase of my career. I was suffering from writer’s block for a period and really sat down with this current stuff in its rawest form. Then I had the idea to form it as one big piece, akin to how I wrote Sirens From Monoliths.
After getting to a stopping point, splitting it up was incredibly difficult. I had to very carefully consider song lengths, but it came naturally as the collective piece continued to develop. I have a good sense of when to stop working on an idea, so after hemming and hawing over it (I debated putting it out as one big piece exclusively), I realized it would be best for the album to have it broken up and labeled as individual pieces.
I tend to be very visually-minded when it comes to making instrumental music. Do you have visuals in mind when composing your music?
For this one specifically, the visuals were some of the hardest parts of completing the project. I had a tentative cover for some time and eventually reworked it after performing for the CLEAT series and deciding with [my partner] Dani to truly step it up and pull together my first ever tour. The whole experience of that performance really sealed the deal in terms of feeling I couldn’t turn back as far as the presentation went. My dear friend Andres Morales and I were in talks to perform with visuals for that show specifically, and after it went as well as it did, we decided we needed to pair up creatively and keep it going.
I care so much about visual presentation, of my own work or otherwise, and Solaris specifically felt like it needed to feel and look like a proper “mature step” visually. We wanted a “melting planets” effect visually, and I feel we continue to experiment and accomplish that with each performance. Andres works with VHS and digital effects, and that merging of the analog and the digital is precisely what I did musically, so it just made perfect sense to work together. I’m very hands-on with the visual components every step of the way, whether I help directly or not, and my end goal is to always make it look like something I’d want to pick up in the record store or would want to go see live.
But I don’t really see visuals in my head when composing my music; that element almost always comes last. I like to make sure the music is as fleshed out as it can be before giving it a proper “face.” If I don’t exactly know what it is yet, I don’t want to give it a visual identity prematurely.
What is the first step you take when starting to compose an ambient piece?
Truth be told, it’s quite random. Sometimes I’ll just randomly get hit with an idea in the middle of the night and record a crappy voice memo of me trying to hum the melody and then expand on that with my setup, or if I’m up and able I’ll just straight up try to patch it right then and there with my rig. Inspiration hits at random bursts for me, where I’ll just write and write and write and then never want to touch my setup again until I absolutely have to. There’s no real, “Okay everyone, let’s all gather in the room and rehearse” for what I do, it’s almost always just me, so I have that freedom at least? It also puts more pressure on me to make sure I don’t procrastinate.
How do you know when an ambient piece is done? I imagine with this type of composition, it could truly go on forever.
To come back to my painting analogy, it’s really just up to me. Some pieces do feel like they could go on forever, but for me I think it only makes the most natural sense that a piece decays and dies naturally after a certain amount of time. I have seen many projects that loop or utilize looping or an “infinite” concept, and while that can often be super exciting, I don’t think that’s quite for me yet. If I have a piece of art, I don’t necessarily need it to have a gimmick of sorts unless it absolutely calls for one and makes sense thematically. It should stand on its own.
How do you hope to build on what you’ve done with Solaris? Where do you think you’ll go next?
I like to treat every record as if I won’t make another, which is hilarious to me because I’ve always put out more material, but you never know! So it’s hard to say what’s next as of right now apart from the tour.
To me, working on Solaris has been an exercise in “If it’s not getting me further, it’s not worth doing.” I mean that purely artistically—if it isn’t stepping up the presentation, if it doesn’t feel like a natural expansion sonically, if it isn’t a net positive to my long term goals, it isn’t worth doing. It may sound arrogant, but to me it just reflects growth, and while growth can’t be endless, it never hurts to keep trying to grow.
Solaris releases May 1, 2026. You can listen to Brady’s music at: https://bradymatteson.bandcamp.com/music
