Matt Bacon - Guitar

Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, Matt Bacon has been a working musician since the age of twenty, playing practically all jazz and pop styles and performing all over the UK and Europe.



Since completing a music degree at Goldsmiths University where he focussed on composition and arrangement, Matt turned to acoustic music and joined She’Koyokh in 2002. At the time She’Koyokh played almost exclusively Jewish klezmer music, although within a year or two they had started to stretch out into some Greek and Czech gypsy music.



He then travelled extensively in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and India researching the variety of musical cultures. Through this Matt became aware of the huge influence of Roma culture on the music of Eastern Europe. This was reflected in the musical direction of She’Koyokh and as the musicians developed together and through the acquisition of Turkish/Kurdish singer Cigdem Aslan amongst other personnel changes, She’koykh became the multi-lingual and multi-cultural band that it still is today.



For about five years Matt developed a rather unhealthy obsession with Django Reinhartd and gypsy jazz, sometimes performing with his own trio , ‘The Manoucheketeers’. 

Finally this spawned an intense yearning to play long unbroken notes and led him to start learning the Kaval, a type of Bulgarian shepherds flute. After briefly studying at the Plovdiv Academy for Folk Music and Dance he used this instrument now and again to augment the Bulgarian flavours in She’Koyokh, adding a ‘mysterious and rustic’ effect.



During the lockdown Matt again decided to branch out and took up the Saxophone. He managed to combine this with his love of nature and the outdoors by teaching himself mainly in the woods around the South Downs. To this day local residents can attest to the effectiveness of this instrument at long distances.



Within all this activity Matt has also managed to play several seasons in the band at the Shakespeare’s Globe, toured extensively with celebrated Serbian gypsy duo, Faith i Branko, and is now a guitar and piano teacher during the day.

 He also arranges and leads from the saxophone a seventeen piece amateur group ‘The London Balkan Orkestar’ who are growing in number and confidence with several performances now under their belt.



Matt is looking forward to the next chapter in the She’koyokh story with the upcoming release of their fifth album and subsequent touring performances.