Chad R. Matheny, known professionally as Emperor X, is an American singer and songwriter.

Early life and career

Born in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

in 1979, Matheny got his start in music when he was given a

Casio SK-1 The Casio SK-1 is a small sampling keyboard made by Casio in 1985. It has 32 small sized piano keys, four-note polyphony, with a sampling bit depth of 8 bit PCM and a sample rate of 9.38 kHz for 1.4 seconds, a built-in microphone and line level ...

by his grandparents at age nine, and recorded his first album on a Tascam four-track before the age of 20. Matheny tours across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

regularly and performs around the world as well, including tours in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. In a self-described attempt to "address the diminishing utility of physical copies of music and the expanding role of marketing in the experience of art", Matheny often hides or buries one-off physical copies and associated visual artwork of

b-sides The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

coordinates and posts them online as a part of a

geocaching Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", at specific l ...

game to unlock

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

copies of the audio. For the release of the 2011 Emperor X album '' Western Teleport'', 41 "translucent purple

audio cassettes The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

" were buried across

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, many of which remain undiscovered. This received a feature on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

's "

Weekend Edition ''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' ...

" program. In 2014, Matheny was commissioned by

99% Invisible ''99% Invisible'' is a radio show and podcast produced and created by Roman Mars that focuses on design. It began as a collaborative project between San Francisco public radio station KALW and the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco ...

to write a song titled "10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories (Don't Change Color, Kitty)" based on Françoise Bastide and

Paolo Fabbri Paolo Fabbri may refer to: * Paolo Fabbri (musicologist) (born 1948), Italian musicologist * Paolo Fabbri (semiotician) (1939–2020), Italian semiotician * Paolo Fabbri, character in ''L'isola di Montecristo'' played by Claudio Gora Claudio G ...

's concept of a millennia-long nuclear waste warning message in the form of a folk song about genetically engineered cats. Matheny wrote it to be "so catchy and annoying that it might be handed down from generation to generation over a span of 10,000 years". In 2020, Matheny and Christian Holden from

The Hotelier The Hotelier is an American indie rock band from Worcester, Massachusetts, currently signed with Dreams of Field Recordings. The band's second album, '' Home, Like Noplace Is There'', has been featured on Spin's "The 101 Best Albums of the 2010s ...

started an artist-managed record label cooperative known as Dreams of Field Recordings.

Personal life

Matheny is a former

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

teacher, and in 2004 he stopped his pursuit of a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

in order to dedicate his career to music. Matheny is a

testicular cancer Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system. Symptoms may include a lump in the testicle, or swelling or pain in the scrotum. Treatment may result in infertility. Risk factors include an u ...

survivor and is

legally blind Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

Discography

Full-length albums

*''The Joytakers' Rakes/Stars on the Ceiling, Pleasantly Kneeling'' (1998, self-released) *''Tectonic Membrane/Thin Strip on an Edgeless Platform'' (2004, Discos Mariscos) *''Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractaldunes'' (2005, Discos Mariscos) *''The Blythe Archives Volume One'' (2008, Burnt Toast Vinyl) *''The Blythe Archives Volume Two'' (2009, self-released) *'' Western Teleport'' (2011, Bar/None Records) *''Nineteen Live Recordings'' (2013, Plan-It-X Records, re-released in 2020 on Dreams of Field Recordings) *''Jetzt Christmas'' (2013) *''The Orlando Sentinel'' (2014, The Bomber Jacket) *''Oversleepers International'' (2017, Tiny Engines) *''The Lakes of Zones B and C'' (2022)

EPs and singles

*''Wuss/Strike/River/Preacher/Magnet/God/Unwuss'' (2006) *''Dirt Dealership'' (2007) *''Defiance (for Elise Sunderhuse)'' (2010) *''Brown Recluse/At a Rave with Nicolas Sarkozy'' (2013) *''10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories'' (2014) *''Wasted on the Senate Floor'' (2016) *''Sad React'' (2020, Dreams of Field Recordings) *''United Earth League of Quarantine Aerobics'' (2020, Dreams of Field Recordings) – as Chad Matheny

Tour-only releases

*''Gasheater/Raytracer'' (2004) *''East Coast and Freedom From/Freedom To'' (2004) *''Everyone in Jacksonville'' (2006) *''Australia Tour Tape'' (2010) *''Several New Songs in Various Digital Formats'' (2011)

References

External links

"Weekend Edition" Story on Matheny's Burial ProjectL Magazine reviewInterview with Artist Connection Podcast
{{Authority control 1979 births American indie rock musicians Living people Musicians from Jacksonville, Florida Musicians from Louisville, Kentucky Rock musicians from Kentucky Singers from Kentucky Songwriters from Kentucky 21st-century American singers Tiny Engines artists