If you still have all your senses intact after seeing Maticrust play live you’re doing something wrong. The UAE-based Filipino six-piece specialises in grindcore with an anarchic spirit, as anyone who was at the Resurrection Festival metal night at Dubai’s Music Room last month can confirm. Erickson, one of the band’s two vocalists, explains what’s behind all that noise.
What does Maticrust mean?
Our band’s name, Maticrust, came from our native Tagalog word “matikas”, which means strong and durable. “Crust” is based on our influences of anarcho-crust punk and noise music. We believe in a DIY attitude. All Maticrust members are young, Pinoy expats living with their families in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. We are all originally from the Philippine Islands, which are always visited by the alphabet typhoons.
What’s the UAE scene like?
It’s growing. Lots of new bands are coming out, gigs are regularly happening every Friday, organised by different active collective groups and hard-working individuals. The music scene is comprised of different music genres, from death metal, thrash metal, black metal and progressive metal to pop punk, punk rock, alternative rock and the rest. Now organisers and attendees are appreciating grindcore, crust punk and noise.
How was the Resurrection Fest?
Full-blast mayhem. Two of our members were not around due to an emergency but still we managed to put on our best grinding gig ever. Our set went well even though we were only three – we still didn’t fail to produce our grind-noise attack to our fellow comrades.
What’s your relation to scenes such as punk and grindcore?
We’ve been part of the crust, punk and grindcore scene since we got involved in DIY anarcho-punk and hardcore punk in our early teens – the 1990s, to be specific.
How did the band get together?
It started in 2011, when Dennis and Don-Don started to jam, and they contacted me as all three of us played together during our teenage years in the punk scene in Manila, in the Philippines, and found a bassist. We played two gigs in a row that time, and then after a few months – due to some tight working schedules as most bands here in the UAE are experiencing – our band rested for a while. Later on, Dennis and Don-Don decided to reform the band and met Paul and Vincent – who were also both involved in the punk scene in the southern part of the Philippines – at one of the gigs in Abu Dhabi. They started to exchange their ideas and musical influences and jam together. Then – boom! – Maticrust was back from the grind horizon.
And now you have a new guitarist, Kris.
Kris just joined recently. He is currently playing with Tartarus, a black-metal band in Dubai, which is inactive nowadays due to some members’ hectic schedules. We’ve been seeing Kris a lot at Dubai metal gigs. We asked him to join this year when we were invited to the Resurrection Fest, but unfortunately he did not have the chance to play with us due to some document-approval issues. He adds more grind to the core mayhem riffs, with a blend of chaotic onslaught tunes in the type of music we’re playing with.
What are you working on right now?
We will write more noise songs this year, play more shows, release our full-length album and hopefully go on a Middle Eastern or Asian tour playing with our favourite bands.
Have you ever encountered hostility because of your music and ideas?
We are very open-minded human beings when it comes to feedback and criticism, but we haven’t received any negative feedback. We are sociopolitically motivated individuals inclined to respect other ideologies, philosophies and interests.
You’ve released tracks and records in Japan and the United States.
Yes, we have contributed five songs to the Slave to the Grindcore: World Wide Grindcore Compilation in Japan by Wideblaster Records, and our first demo was released by Placenta Recordings in the US.
What’s the easiest way for people to hear your music here?
You can check us out on YouTube, SoundCloud, Facebook and at reverbnation.com/maticrust. We have our own DIY distro [distributor] in Dubai as well as our local distro counterparts in our homeland. For those who are interested to hear our music, trade their stuff or buy our demo and other releases, please do not hesitate to contact us via our Facebook page.
What have been some of the other highs and lows of the band’s career?
We are not a career-orientated band. We just want to play for noise and fun, share our music and views with those people who believe in us, so there will be no “ups and downs” scenario. We’ve been in touch with different cool people, organisers, labels who are interested in our music and ideas. We are now in the process of finalising our full-length album composed of 12 original tracks and, hopefully, we can finish it before this year ends.
artslife@thenational.ae
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Expert advice
“Join in with a group like Cycle Safe Dubai or TrainYAS, where you’ll meet like-minded people and always have support on hand.”
Stewart Howison, co-founder of Cycle Safe Dubai and owner of Revolution Cycles
“When you sweat a lot, you lose a lot of salt and other electrolytes from your body. If your electrolytes drop enough, you will be at risk of cramping. To prevent salt deficiency, simply add an electrolyte mix to your water.”
Cornelia Gloor, head of RAK Hospital’s Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy Centre
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can ride as fast or as far during the summer as you do in cooler weather. The heat will make you expend more energy to maintain a speed that might normally be comfortable, so pace yourself when riding during the hotter parts of the day.”
Chandrashekar Nandi, physiotherapist at Burjeel Hospital in Dubai
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
