Matthew Belton and his Mangled Tapes label have been a huge inspiration for Double Lunch. Aside from sharing a love of lo-fi weirdo pop, Matthew Belton and Craig from Double Lunch share a passion for getting music they love to the people. Here is the story of Mangled:
Matthew Belton used to play tons of shows back in the day, but ended up going to university and ruining his life. Depression set in. He withdrew from the scene completely for almost 5 years.
A lot of things happened in those years. He got married, had a cute kid, bought a house, got laid-off, became a stay-at-home dad. Over these years Matthew ended up with had an album mastered and ready to go and was searching out labels. No luck. What's a guy to do? Start his own damn label.
Mangled started in January 2016 and was originally going to be a platform for promoting and distributing Matthew's own releases. But he soon realized that he should probably have other bands on his label. So, he began seeking out some of his favourite musicians and started asking them if they were interested in working with mangled.
His first target was Nick Johnson, formerly of Field & Stream. Matthew hadn't talked to him in years, but they reconnected on facebook. He said he had a soundtrack project and that he wanted to put it out there. But then he showed Matthew an album he made years ago, and it was fucking awesome. Nick was considering shopping it around to some big labels, so he didn't really think about putting it out on Mangled. Eventually, Matthew wore him down. That album was Smokey & The Feeelings.
Anti-pop recluse genius Brad Sime was harder to get a hold of. Matthew eventually tracked him down through his Colin Powell Beach bandcamp page. He was pretty much into it immediately. After long emails back and forth the two met up at the It Dog on 109th. This was January or February. He had nothing recorded at this time, but was super keen. Over the year he recorded Willow, releasing it in October at the Bleeding Heart Art Space. And it is phenomenal.
Robert Mallet was suggested to Matthew by Brad and although he wasn't familiar with Rob, he was in Colin Powell Beach with Brad so that was enough reason to check him out. He sent Matthew an amazing 8 track mini album that will hopefully be coming out early next year. He is fantastic.
Joel Rich is the guy who introduced Matthew to the possibilities of electronic music. He's a Vancouver-based tattoo artist who makes awesome lofi electronic music. Mangled will be releasing a retrospective cassette as well as all-new material next year.
Rory Hanchard is an Edmonton-expat currently living in Ottawa. He is Young Truck. He was in Pants + Tie. He is in Tempo Topaz with Matthew. He's awesome. There will be a Young Truck/Westfalia split cassette coming out some time in 2017.
https://mangledtapes.bandcamp.com/