While working as lecturer in music at the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre in Sydney Matthew learnt to master the didgeridoo in 1984. In 1985 Matthew was adopted into the Williams family, a family of traditional Llardil song men, didgeridoo masters and dancers. He later spent a year living and working with the Llardil people of Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Matthew McGrath, founding member of Frill Neck, introduced the didgeridoo to Berlin in 1987. Following his Berlin solo didgeridoo debut at the Monsters Myths and Mutation festival in Tempodrome in 1987, Frill Neck was formed with Stewart Dunlop. Didgeridoo meets virtuoso guitars. Frill Neck’s unique blend of atmospheric ethno-jazz-punk and contemporary ballads spread quickly, drawing much attention and critical praise in the world of contemporary music, until Stewart’s death in 2006. Frill Neck’s eponymous album from 1992 is available from SUTA publishing https://sutapublishing.com/product/beispiel-produkt-nr-2/

Apart from performing as singer songwriter and with the didgeridoo, Matthew conceived and organised a festival of great Australian indigenous performers in Berlin such as Bangarra dance Theatre, Woomera dance group, the Warrumpi Band, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter in the Rückkehr des Boomerangs with Haus der Kulturen der Welt in 1995. Matthew instigated and managed a further tour of Europe by Woomera dance group in 1996, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of UNICEF.

Since 2011, Matthew has performed and composed music for „whichdoctorwatson“ who released the debut album “circular hymns”  a documentation of a live performance program. “Circular Hymns” charted new musical waters in contemporary musical explorations that also draw on over 35 years experience in Berlin as a solo didgeridoo artist. In “circular hymns” the didgeridoo and the “Jam Man®” sampler combine to create evocative and haunting music never heard before. The circular nature of repetition in the didgeridoo, one the world’s oldest musical instruments and the digital sampler, one of the newest, gives the project its name. The CD “circular hymns” was released in 2012 and available at https://sutapublishing.com/product/beispiel-produkt-nr-1/

In 2026 the second album from WhichDoctorWatson? “Shonky Downtime in Heterotopia” is scheduled for release.

Matthew is acknowledged as a modern master of the didgeridoo and has been given permission by the Llardil elders to play a selection of traditional songs and teach the playing of the didgeridoo. His concerts include some of his own solo pieces, compositions from Frill Neck and Whichdoctorwatson? as well as a selection of traditional Llardil songs.

Matthew has worked on many collaborative projects in music, theatre and film. His most raucous excursion in music performance was undeniably as singer/ saxophonist of “Hysenkeit”.