Safe to say I have a man crush on Matt Berry right from the very first time I saw Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace in 2004 and hit the deck crying seeing him performing One Track Lover. Berry’s character Dr Lucien Sanchez with his overdubbed voice helped cement that genius comedy into one of my favourites.
Then he started popping up all over the place, on all the great comedies adding his roguish loud charm as the crazed Dixon Bainbridge on The Mighty Boosh, joining up again with Rich Fulcher to do the cult favourite and shameful only one series of Snuff Box. He plays Douglas Reynholm in The IT Crowd and Beef in House Of Fools with Vic and Bob plus stars in his own series Toast Of London as the actor Steven Toast. To add to this his cameo roles have been classic too especially Vangelis in Shooting Stars and Geoff in Saxondale. Not to mention the one off Jesus Of Nazareth vs Hair musical mash up of AD/BC A Rock Opera.
Now I was always so fond of his musical arrangements that have been dotted about with his career, like the above mentioned One track Lover, Snuff Box was a whole soundtrack of music and how ever much I love Toast Of London it’s the little music segments I adore the most. So with all this love how the FECK did I miss his LP recording career? 5 studio LPs and a live one too. To be fair I did know about Music For Insomniacs but it disappeared so fast off the shelves in it’s limited press run and started fetching silly money I gave up looking.
Wasn’t till a Facebook friend posted up his new recording Small Hours on Acid Jazz Recordings that the penny dropped and I face palmed myself. The OCD in me went on a mission and straight away I picked up Small Hours on a lovely gatefold cover and green vinyl, to my delight Music For Insomniacs has been repressed, and I grabbed Kill The Wolf and Witchazel. Opium though looks like it will be a lost cause but I will keep searching for that one. Fingers crossed for a possible reissue!
Not content with just writing and singing, the show off only goes and plays like a million instruments on his lp’s. Here’s just a few listed on the recordings, postive church organ, mellotron, mandolin, banjo, 12 string guitar and glockenspiel but no mention of the cow bell so can’t be that talented!
Here’s Matt Berry surrounded by vintage synths on the back of the cover for Music For Insomniacs.
Ridiculous amount of synths, listed are
Arp Odyssey synthesiser, Korg MS-20, Korg MS-2000B and Vocoder, Korg Sigma, Korg Polyphonic Ensemble, Korg SV1 Electric Piano, Minimoog, Mellotron Pro, Solina String Ensemble, Roland Jupiter 4, Roland Pro Mars, Roland Juno 6, Roland Gaia, Roland Jupiter 80, Yamaha CS-15, Yamaha CS-60, Hammond XKB Organ. Now that’s a serious bit of kit.
Matt Berry “Roosting Time” (Might be my favourite so far)
Matt Berry “The Pheasant”
Matt Berry – October Sun
Matt Berry – Music For Insomniacs – Part 1
Matt Berry – Obsessed and So Obscure
As Vangelis on Shooting Stars with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer
ADBC: A Rock Opera
Mad Mongos Music 