Everything's Peachy: Vinyl LP
AJXLP932Label: Acid Jazz
Release Date: 26th June
You get the actors who turn to music as a wee hobby, a little indulgence, an ego stroke and in honesty, are these albums getting second spins? And then there's Matt Berry who you always get the feeling is a musician first and does the voice for a Goldfish in a kids film so he can afford the freedom to buy vintage synths and concentrate on his prog folk albums or in this case his jazz trio. 'Everything's Peachy' is the second of his 'Jazz Sessions' albums, his keys are supple they have his sense of playfulness and a cinematic British jazz edge. It's a testament to how good a musician Matt Berry is because whilst I love every scene he steals in everything's he done, his music is the best thing he does.
Acid Jazz presents the second volume of their Jazz Sessions series with the first
album from the Matt Berry Trio, with Matt Berry joined by band members Phill
Scragg and Graham Mann on ‘Everything’s Peachy’.
When not creating numerous indelible characters on the screen, Matt Berry has
forged a remarkable, diverse and acclaimed career as a recording artist. Following
the widely lauded ‘Heard Noises’ (2025) and a collaboration album with KPM
‘Simplicity’ (2023), he returns in yet another musical guise as leader of a studio-
based mid-century jazz adjacent trio.
‘Everything Peachy’ is a 12-part instrumental suite, inspired by ‘the Sky King’
(American folk hero Richard “Beebo” Russell), who stole a large aircraft with no
flight training, performing stunts and manoeuvres, before crashing to his own
demise, and takes its name from his response to air traffic control.
Conveying variously the chaos, nostalgia, regret and acceptance of Russell’s
maiden flight, it is an open, freeform and flowing composition, drawing influence
from the electronic experiments of Miles Davis and the melancholy of Satie, to
create another moment of musical beauty from Matt’s curious and ever-moving
musical mind.
The Jazz Sessions series was conceived by Acid Jazz founder Ed Piller as a return
to the jazz roots of the label. The first release came from former Style Council
drummer Steve White, with his first album as leader ’Soul Drums’, further
releases will follow over the next year.