CONCORD DAWN

Concord Dawn began life as Evan Short & Matt Harvey, bursting onto the New Zealand music scene back in mid 1999 with their unique high octane Drum and Bass sound. They were the darlings of the local bNet / Student Radio stations up and down New Zealand, getting hefty primetime airplay, featuring at the top of the weekly Top Ten’s and breaking chart records across the bNet. After a year or so of underground success they were courted by local electronic music label Kog Transmissions and released their first album Concord Dawn in July 2000.

After touring the album throughout New Zealand they released their second album Disturbance in April 2001 and received “Best Electronic Album” and “Best Independent Release” at the 2001 bNet Music Awards. Both Concord Dawn and Disturbance sold far better than expected and the boys received strong reviews in all forms of media not only for their releases but also for their energetic live performances. For the next year they went into hiatus to refine the Concord Dawn sound further with Evan heading to London for 5 months to immerse himself in the culture of the Drum and Bass homeland. Upon his return to New Zealand work was started on their 3^rd album Uprising with tracks like “Morning Light” and “Don’t Tell Me” finding international acclaim well before the album’s release. Uprising was released in New Zealand in September 2003 and reached gold sales status in an amazing 3 months.

With Concord Dawn now well established internationally and their catalogue now being distributed worldwide Evan and Matt embarked on a seemingly never ending world tour, travelling all over the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. At the 2003 bNet music awards “Morning Light” won “Best Song” and “Most Radio Play” and at the 2004 bNet music awards Uprising received “Best Album” and “Best Electronic Release”.

Work on their long awaited 4^th album was completed in early 2005 and was titled Chaos By Design to express the album’s musically eclectic nature. The album and singles won critical acclaim worldwide with various tracks off the albums being signed to some of the biggest and most respected Drum and Bass labels worldwide such as Metalheadz, Ram Records and Hospital Recordings. Chaos By Design also won “Best Electronic Album” at the 2006 New Zealand Music Awards.

Another full world tour was embarked on shortly after the release with Matt relocating to Vienna, in the heart of Europe and Evan covering New Zealand, Australia, Asia and the Americas from home base in New Zealand.

2008 saw Evan focus on his studio commitments and leave the project while Matt continued on with Concord Dawn. Following a lengthy period of solo touring work began on the 5^th studio album, ‘The Enemy Within’, which was released on September 20^th 2010 and garnered much praise, receiving iTunes New Zealand’s “Electronic Album Of The Year” and being nominated for the same prize at the New Zealand music awards also. It peaked at #2 in the iTunes album charts. The track “Easy Life” was also the second most played tune on national dance station GeorgeFM for 2010.

Following extensive touring supporting this release Matt went back in to the studio to work on “The Race To Zero” EP which heralded a new direction. The release (in mid 2011) received a 9.5 out of 10 from DJ magazine as well as release of the month, and had radio support from the BBC amongst others.