Matt Bauer grew up in Kentucky, and his music is rooted in the sounds and natural surroundings of the region. His melodies and banjo style bear the markings of traditional mountain music, bluegrass and early country, but his sound is distinctly contemporary. The lyrics live unflinchingly in the present and the arrangements draw on influences as varied as gamelan orchestras and post-rock.

His latest record The Island Moved in the Storm, centers around the story of a young woman was found dead along a dirt road near Eagle Creek, north of Georgetown, Kentucky in 1968. For thirty years, she was known only as ‘Tent Girl’, the name given to her by the Kentucky Post & Times Star because she'd been found wrapped in canvas resembling a tent bag. This album is a series of overlapping narratives inspired by her story as re-imagined to incorporate imagery and locales from Bauer’s rural Kentucky upbringing – The places Bauer grew up in were the last places The Tent Girl, Barbara Anne Hackman Taylor, was seen before her disappearance.

Matt Bauer now lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY.