Matt C. White descends into psychedelic chaos on new single ‘Ursa’

Brooklyn-based songwriter and guitarist Matt C. White turns the amplifiers skyward on ‘Ursa’, a sprawling new psych-rock single taken from his forthcoming album The Flood.

Beginning with a sparse, almost mesmeric sense of repetition, ‘Ursa’ steadily gathers mass as reverberating guitars, tape-treated textures and a persistent motorik rhythm pull the track forward. What starts relatively restrained eventually erupts into an enormous wall of distortion, with stacked guitar parts pushing the song towards a suitably unruly finale.

There are flashes of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Black Angels, Slift and Hawkwind within its psychedelic DNA, although he retains the heavier Southern character that has become central to his own approach. Garage-rock roughness, krautrock propulsion and stoner-rock muscle all find their way into the mix.

More importantly, ‘Ursa’ occupies a pivotal position within The Flood. Acting as both the emotional high point and final downward movement of the album’s wider narrative, it suggests Matt C. White is thinking well beyond individual singles.