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"From out of the dark"

From Out Of The Dark

From out of the dark is a collection of 6 songs finished during the infamous Covid lockdown of 2020, drawing musical influences from many different genres and based on different themes close to my heart.

Some with a narrative, others about how I felt a particular junction in life, playing music, writing and recording songs has been a great outlet for me and helped me deal with and express myself in a productive fashion.

With no single genre over the six songs I decided to put them out as From out of the dark, to show how something good can come from the darkness. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making them.

I appreciate so much all the friends and family who have helped critique these tracks ready for public consumption. Thanks also to my younger sister, Hannah, for providing her vocal talents and lyric writing on two of the songs.

Please listen below and follow me on all of my social networks using the links above.

Matt x

#Contact by Carl Sagan


The movie contact is a much beloved Sci-Fi film of mine and I've been eager to read the fiction behind it for some time.

The premise is of the notion of Earth's first 'Contact' with intelligent life from out there within the cosmos. Doctor Arroway is our leading character, an intelligent yet modest female scientist stationed at a radio telescope lab, of which some of her time is devoted to SETI - the search for extra terrestrial intelligence.

Upon breaking down the received signal they find a message. Whilst a lengthy search for a primer embedded within the message itself that holds the key to decryption, a swathe of political, scientific and religious debates continue regarding how humanity should react to the message.

As the message becomes clearer, they find within it instructions and blueprints, meticulously written, for some sort of transportation device. Requiring new materials, processes and a level of science currently unknown to mankind, further debate ensues within the human race - what does building and using a transport mean for humanity? Is it legitimate? Now that ET life is apparent, what are their intentions for humanity? What does it mean philosophically; economically; scientifically? What will the machine do when activated? Who should be in charge of representing the human race if and when a machine comes to fruition?

What I enjoyed most about the story by Sagan are all of these questions that the story tackles within the dialogues. This firmly roots the entire premise deeply in a realism that keeps the entire concept believable. I think the global reaction to the message in Contact is much how the world would actually react should this ever actually occur. This realism is further enforced by the inclusion of at least pseudo-accurate scientific ideas and theories.

The conclusion of the novel is slightly different from the film, and 5 participants are chosen to trial the machine rather than the singular Jodie Foster in the movie. Each has a slightly different experience, but predictably a failure of limited human technologies means there is no proof that the machine actually did anything...

The chapters in Contact are long and despite a lot of scientific jargon I didn't find the book difficult to read and I was able to space this one out over a long time, dropping in and out easily remembering where I'd left off. The characters are all interesting and believably written, and I really empathized with Doctor Arroway especially when considering her family situation.

The notion of first contact being from an intelligent civilization as apposed to an invasion of little green men and the inclusion of the political and scientific content make this an incredibly believable and interesting read. I would recommend for any fans of Science-Fiction or of space in general.

#OffToBeTheWizard by Scott Meyer mini review


Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer is a comical take on the premise of what if this life we lead is actually just a part of a computer simulation? Well, what if?

Our protagonist, Martin, works a mundane IT job and in his spare time does a little low level hacking of company servers to pass the time. Whilst rummaging through the server of a telecommunications company he stumbles across a seemingly innocent looking data file. When making changes to the file, he finds he can manipulate the physical world, his height; location; bank balance...

Of course who could resist a bit of a splurge if they discovered how to do this? And of course the authorities quickly discover the Martin has had an influx of wealth appear from apparently nowhere! Martin's contingency plan - to escape back in time to Medieval England - as after some (very) low level research he concludes this would be the optimum place to exist with the powers he's discovered.

Upon his arrival, Martin quickly realises he is not the only one like him that has had the same idea! He meet's Phillip, who sets about introducing him to the apparently magical world of Medieval England and training Martin for his wizarding trials, the successful completion of which will grant his acceptance into this new society, where as failure would involve some rather embarrassing naked banishment...

After getting used to life back in time, Martin uncovers a sinister plot where someone from the wizarding community is attempting to change the world to his own design specification... specifically turning Ye Olde' England into Ye Olde' Middle Earth, making changes to the local residents in quite disturbing ways.

Of course, they band together to try and thwart the scheme, using their knowledge of the file to help along the way. It's an apt analogy of computer coding, as anyone with little understanding of it may really think it is a little like magic!

The story is funny, easy to read and well paced, though some more back story about characters would've been nice to really add some extra realism. It's packed with lots of geeky references such as a Commodore 64 crystal ball and 80s sci-fi movie references.

There do seem to be a few plot holes - I don't rightly understand how Martin is able to keep editing the file using his phone in medieval England, when presumably AT&T are not quite established at this point... However, look over these niggles and you're in for a fun and entertaining geeky read. Definitely recommended for fans of Tom Holt and Ernest Cline. It also ends on a great cliffhanger, and I eagerly await somebody buying me the next entry...

Game Boy World 1989

Game Boy World 1989 is a crowd funded book (via https://www.patreon.com/gamespite) written and compiled by Jeremy Parish, a video game journalist and authority on many things retro.

An unofficial look at all Japanese and American releases for the Nintendo Game Boy in it's year of release.


It's a nice looking, A4 sized book containing simple text and black and white screenshots throughout, and I found each entry on all the games, ranging from the well known greats such as Tetris and Super Mario Land, to obscurities such as Asmik-kun World and Pachinko Time, to be interesting and illuminating whilst being simultaneously entertaining.

Rather than a review of each game which are typically affected by our rose tinted bespectacled view on simpler, nostalgic periods of gaming history, I felt that Game Boy World was written extremely objectively. It details both the flaws and fancies of all of the games released in the first year of the Game Boy's life, providing praise and critiques where fitting. It further gives some detail into the history behind companies and releases, where there may have been interesting quirks to do with how games came into existence in the first place.

A genuinely well written and interesting read for anyone with a passion for retro gaming, Nintendo, and of course the old, faithful and glorious machine that was the Game Boy.