Pearl Diver

Pearl Diver are a three-piece rock band from Oxford, England, put together by singer and guitarist, Matt Sage, with bassist, Josh Rigal, and drummer, Joel Bassuk.

“A great artist” – Gilles Peterson
“Seriously gorgeous sounds” – Mike Scott, The Waterboys
“Sublime”, Nightshift Magazine

 
When his first band came to an end - with the other founder members going on to form Faithless – Matt Sage moved onto a boat on the Oxford Canal and founded the City’s now legendary weekly performance night, The Catweazle Club, for singers, poets, storytellers, musicians and performers of every imaginable hue, still going strong today.

“Magical” – BBC Radio 4
“An Essential Cultural Interlude” – The Guardian
"Britain’s Most Intimate Performance Space” – The Times.

Catweazle has been the springboard for literally thousands of artists since it began in 1994, including first performances from the likes of Stornoway and Foals.

While drawing huge rewards from having been at the axis of such a vibrant scene for well over two decades, Sage still uses the Club to keep his own game razor sharp.  A relentlessly prolific artist and song writer, his songs have such broad appeal that they have been played on Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6 and as both a solo artist and song writing mentor, he has appeared at festivals throughout the world, including Glastonbury, WOMAD, Secret Garden Party, Bestival, etc. and  supported Grammy winners Diana Krall & Tinariwen on stage at Kenwood House and at the O2 respectively.

“These songs drip with atmosphere...simple classic songwriting that takes in woozy folk, fractured blues and battered Americana"
- Crack  Magazine

Pearl Diver are

“Consummate creators of classic music: truly great songs"- With Guitars Magazine

 With the intense emotion of The Swell Season’s Glen Hansard or Jeff Buckley, the layered guitars of Fleetwood Mac and the heartfelt soul of Van Morrison: the broken-hearted keening of John Martyn to the ragged mastery of the Stones at their peak: theirs is a thrilling confluence of influences.  Sweet, soulful rock n roll.

"Entirely engrossing...Compelling" - Ocelot

Of the band, and their forthcoming debut album, singer-guitarist, Matt Sage, says: “The three of us have been playing music together for several years now.  The last record we made, as Art Theefe, I had begun before we got together.  It had started out as a solo adventure, to which I then recruited Josh and Joel.  It's only in the last couple of years that we have really become a band, and this is reflected in the name change, but also in the sound.  The whole thing is much more coherent - we've pretty much done our 10,000 hours now - and I wanted to honour that by launching these new songs as an entirely new project, which it is." 

Pearl Diver release their debut EP in 2022, with an album to follow.

“Beautiful!” - BBC Introducing

Of recent single release, Give It All Away, Nightshift Magazine, said:

"Listening to this new single from Catweazle Club honcho Matt Sage’s band, it’s easy to sink into a reverie where Matt is crooning the track to wellheeled wise guys in a 1950s New York nightclub.Smooth is an understatement, though not in this case an insult. Instead it gives the song a timeless quality which pitches it above and beyond trend and fashion. Like the venerable Richard Hawley, , whose ‘For Your Lover Give Some Time’ ‘GiveIt All Away’ bears a passing resemblance.Sage conveys an easy, old-school romantic vibe, a softshoe shuffle, that you feel deserves to be played in rather grander, more ornate concert halls in grander, more ornate times than the modern day pub venues it’s more likely to be given an airing in".