Chad R. Matheny has been releasing eccentric, lyrically-dense underground pop music since 1998, often under the name Emperor X. After training in physics, philosophy, and music composition, Matheny paused academic work and spent much of the past two decades crossing the world on buses and bullet trains to make music at locations ranging from a small but packed symphony hall in Portugal to an emtpy trade fair dome in northern Lebanon to literally-underground metal bars across Ukraine.He often tours alone with a guitar and synth, but sometime shares bills with fellow travelers including Ratboys, The Hotelier, The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Foxing, AJJ, The Front Bottoms, and Xiu Xiu.He produced the new Brian Sella album Well I Mean, co-produced the Sub Pop album Bits by jangle punk legends Oxford Collapse alongside Eric Topalski of Don Caballero and Storm & Stress, and composed video soundtrack music for non-profit organizations including Planned Parenthood and SEIU. In 2011 and 2012, Matheny’s ambient work Keeling Curve was used in a multimedia installation by photographer Joel Sternfeld that was featured in a retrospective exhibition at Museum Folkwang.
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