🎵 IT108: A Nostalgic Hug
✏️ Matt Partrdge
🗓 01.05.21


Matt is an animation director and designer whose youth was spent mostly in the small town in Wiltshire but now resides in East London.

Hey Matt. Can you tell us a little bit about your tape and your song selections?

Sure. A few years back I got really bored of listening to the same old stuff and decided to go looking for some new music. I listened to random bands on youtube, used the ‘Discover’ feature on spotify, looked up lists on websites and eventually made a new playlist, which I listened to obsessively.

Soon I started to notice that a lot of the new tracks I added reminded me of the kind of thing I listened to in my teens, a sort of americana fun happy indie vibe, with some surprises thrown in. The sort of music you’d find on a movie soundtrack from a 90s or early 2000s teen comedies.

I’ve kept these playlists up every month and during the lockdowns they’ve become a real comfort to me, like a nostalgic hug of new bands and artists to get me through the stress and monotony.

This mixtape is made up of some of the tracks that have brought me the most joy.

What direction did you take with your cover art, and what was your process?

I went back and forth with a few ideas for this album cover but I knew I wanted to get across the bright and happy tones of the music it features, along with the good vibes I get from each track.

I tend to sketch a lot in sketchbooks, then, when I start to feel like I'm getting somewhere, I'll bring it into Photoshop and play with it some more. Colours are always tricky, but I just play around until I feel they’re working together. As you can tell I love bold colours!