Mathame Bring a Volcanic Sound to the Masses of EXIT Festival

Brothers Matteo and Amedeo Giovanelli - aka Mathame - brought a barnstorming set to the masses of EXIT festival. Known for their emotive and ethereal melodic techno and cinematic soundscapes, the duo are firm favorites of Tale of Us and the Afterlife family. Since 2018, they’ve played 90 - 100 gigs a year on the success of just a few EPs; a testament to the fact that taking your time in the studio reaps big rewards.

EXIT is an award-winning summer music festival at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia, with more than 1000 artists who play on over 40 stages and festival zones. Born in 2000 in University Park, the festival started out as a student movement fighting for democracy and freedom in Serbia and the Balkans.

Today, the EXIT mission remains resolute: to achieve social change with music. Social responsibility is still the core ethos of the festival activities, with the main focus on environmental and humanitarian action, development of the creative industries, and regional cooperation.

Matteo and Amedeo’s parents raised their kids in a home swimming in records and cassette tapes and ran an accomplished pirate radio station in Italy. Matteo cut his teeth as a local hip-hop DJ in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Soon after, he enrolled in university to study film and began writing and directing art movies.

After studying the violin for years, Amedeo eventually shifted his gaze to electronic music. Despite being won over by DAWs and synths, classical music continued to have a heavy influence on him.

It wasn’t until the duo’s parents moved to the enchanting slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna—an active volcano—that the Mathame project was born. After a bustling holiday season, the whole Italian island fell silent in winter. “We were completely alone,” Amedeo says. “You listen to the rumbling of the Etna volcano. It’s magical, but also there is nothing around.” Mathame produced their first hit singles, “Skywalking” and “Nothing Around Us,” during this melancholic but beautiful time of the year.

Catch Mathame soon at a myriad of clubs and festivals across the globe, including De Kromhouthal in Amsterdam, Comunión at Centro De Eventos Autopista Norte in Bogotá, and Das Zimmer in Mannheim.

Follow Mathame on Twitter | Instagram | Soundcloud