Independent, by design.

MAT Magazine started as a stapled photocopy passed around at shows before it was ever a website. The name is short for 'materi' — material — because that's what the founding editors kept coming back to: the physical, hand-made stuff of independent culture, from a riso-printed zine to a basement show flyer taped to a lamppost.

We publish interviews, reviews, photo essays and reporting on visual art, photography, indie music, underground fashion and the wider alternative culture that surrounds all four. We work almost entirely with independent artists, small labels and self-published makers, and we pay every contributor for their work.

Our editorial rule is simple: we cover what's actually happening in the scenes we're part of, not what a press release tells us is happening. Most of what runs in the magazine starts with a writer or photographer already embedded in the world they're covering.

MAT Magazine is edited and produced independently, with no institutional backing. If you want to pitch a story, submit music to the mixtape inbox, or just tell us we got something wrong, the contact page is the place to do it.