Mat McNerney

The first of our commissioned projects to be announced for 2024 gives us great cause for excitement. Earlier this year we approached MAT MCNERNEY – no stranger to the Roadburn stage – and enquired whether he would be interested in composing an all new, original piece of music to be performed at Roadburn 2024. We’re thrilled to report that he embraced the notion, and come April we will host the live debut of his work under the title Music for Gloaming: A Nocturne by the Hexvessel Folk Assembly.

Those of you who have followed Mat’s work through various different vehicles and incarnations will know that he is visionary when it comes to melding his black metal roots with occult folk resonance. Nowhere is this more prominent than on Hexvessel’s latest missive, Polar Veil (which will also be performed in full at Roadburn 2024). Now, as the cloak of darkness starts to fall, Hexvessel and friends will explore a crepuscular landscape of their own making via Music for Gloaming: A Nocturne, a commissioned narrative destined to echo through the halls of Roadburn in its world premiere.

‘Nocturne’ evokes night-time mysticism, a realm where daylight bows to advancing darkness, unraveling both the external twilight tapestry and the internal landscapes of memory and thought. Through ‘Music for Gloaming’, Hexvessel explores these ephemeral states, binding the eerie calm of nature’s nocturnal facet with the subtle unrest of urban dusk.

Given the freedom to create as he sees fit, Mat promises that the musical narrative will transcend an album’s boundaries. “It’s a somber veil cast over the habitual, ushering listeners into a space where the whispering trees and the silvery gaze of the moon commune with the quiet solitude of street-lit parks”, he says, “Each note is a gentle step into the profound embrace of night’s tender reckoning, each chord, a soft murmur amidst the enduring dialogue between the known and the unknown.”

Mat McNerney has made a mark on the underground over the last 20 years, as a song-writer and singer for bands such as Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures, Carpenter Brut, Me & That Man, Dødheimsgard, Code and his main outlet Hexvessel. Now with an expanded lineup, Hexvessel becomes a “folk assembly” to perform Music for Gloaming: A Nocturne a specially commissioned work for Roadburn Festival which will see its exclusive debut at Roadburn 2024.

Mat comments: “Music for Gloaming isn’t just about presenting something new; it’s about diving headfirst into the spirit of our existing dark northern mysticism, that we began with Polar Veil, and allowing it to bloom in a new light. I am honoured and look forward to sharing this immersive experience with our audience at Roadburn 2024, as we collectively journey through the realms of dusk’s descent.”