In 2007, singer Mattis Myrland travelled to India - New Delhi, to live and study with a master of Indian Classical Singing - Madhumita Ray. The discipline and daily vocal training inspired Mattis to create a host of stories and gave him a rucksack full of new sounds to accompany them.

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Back in Norway, Mattis reworked the sketches he had scribbled and recorded during his eight months stay. He gathered together some of his favourite performers on the Norwegian music scene, and named the band after one of South Asia’s oldest roads that has linked the Eastern and Western regions of the Indian subcontinent for centuries.

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Mattis & The Grand Trunk Road played at several festivals in the following years, with Mattis meticulously rewriting and recording his compositions along the way, trying out various phrases live and finishing them in his studio in downtown Oslo.

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The album Imperial Splendor was finally released in the UK in 2013. - A collection of songs linking Mattis’ Western singer/songwriter background with the influence of the East. The blend is a soundscape, hard to frame into any specific genre. Its direct, yet poetic story-telling leads the way and the music varies from the spare and ethereal, to the dense and edgy. ‘These stories have their own pace and attitudes and I didn’t want the standard popsong-formula to limit how they unfold. It’s a state of mind that needs constant exercise, letting the words show you the way and letting the music follow the flow of the words’, Mattis explains.

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One year later, following its release in Norway, it was awarded "Best Norwegian album 2014", by the popular world music radio show Jungeltelegrafen on NRK P2.

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Since then, Mattis has been busy on different music arenas with a wide variety of genres: - With the bluegrass band Løkki he toured all over Norway playing school concerts for kids, visiting around 5000 classrooms and receiving a nomination for the Norwegian Grammy Award "Spellemannsprisen" in 2016.

- He sang "London Calling" along with the 52 piece ensemble Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra (KORK) for the TV-shows from The Olympic games in London in 2012. - He worked with Norwegian ECM artist, pianist and composer Jon Balke on different occasions as a singer and lyricist. - He toured with vocalist and pianist Ingrid Olava for several years. - He founded a record label, Herredsskogmesterens Kontor along with guitarist Haldor Røyne, and produced albums for other artists.

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Six years after the release of "Imperial Splendor", Mattis had collected enough sketches to start working on a new solo album. Recordings are done at different studios , in France and Norway, in collaboration with drummer/producer Sven Andréen and with Haldor Røyne.

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"Beautiful Fanatic" is a collection of songs contemplating the ongoing war on truth - they are emotional responses to the chaotic events, and the new faces of fanaticism, - political and religious, around the world.