Like certain other Southern California songwriters before him, Matt Costa has drifted through a strange and varied life in music, pushed toward pop music at a young age, selling hundreds of thousands of records and touring the world on the back of a simple, direct, and freewheeling debut. In the last few years, Costa took heavy stock in his work, and made unexpected turns into more progressive and thoughtful territories. This new direction has found him wandering; an outlier between the worlds of his own development as an artist, modern Orange County, his former label Brushfire Records, and cutting through the center of a now hidden and older California mystique.

Prolific at every turn, Matt has taken on the aura of a classic California drifter, spinning records in the midnight hours of his local Laguna Beach radio station, writing by day cataclysmically varied music, from fingerpicked John Fahey like numbers to Beach Boys like pop, to singer songwriter numbers like a young Harry Nillson, to early rock & roll- Eric Burdon and the Animals, Van Morrison’s Them, the guitar playing and arrangements of Brian Jones.

The last years have been eventful ones. Born and raised in Laguna Beach, Costa met some filmmakers hard at work on a documentary entitled Orange Sunshine detailing the story of the Brotherhood of Eternal love; a coastal church centered on psychedelics who became the largest manufacturers and distributors of LSD in the United States. Matt composed the entire score, beginning to tap into the underlying myths and secrets of his hometown. The film and Matt’s soundtrack were both released to wide acclaim at the end of 2016. Concurrently with the film, Matt Costa began to write so much music that it threw off label schedules. Exhausted by talk of record and touring cycles, and the economics of the music industry, Matt quietly self released a total of 5 EP’s, each with a different and varied sound.

The start of 2017 brings a new found purpose, resolution, and a powerful new cycle of songs harkening to the sunny side and the darker edges of California. With each song speaking from both its own history and experience, Matt is now returning to the studio, embarking on his first full LP in almost five years. Recording at New Monkey Studio (Elliott Smith’s old room in Los Angeles), and produced alongside Peter Matthew Bauer (The Walkmen) & Nick Stumpf (French Kicks, Caveman), this new record takes Matt Costa’s experiments and journeys of the last few years and focuses them into a new and direct statement. There is a classic sound and focus reminiscent of Tom Petty and early Elvis Costello, complete with a strong back beat discovered with his rollicking touring band, and an an acoustic side that plays out as some of Matt's best individual stories put to tape. After a long time wandering, it is now time for a return to the world at large.