Shopping Done?

Me again. Get your shopping done ok? Then I'll begin...
Last week I did and interview with the telgraph. We sat in the lobby of a
fancy hotel and had tea and fancy hotel biscuits. My tea had amusingly been
made with quite a lot of salt in it. Not a very pleasing combination.
Reminded me of a drink that ben and I invented when I was about 7. It was a
refreshing mixture of fruit juice, food colouring and milk which turned into
sick-like lumps. We called it 'Roman X'.

Anyhoo, we were talking about the aqua-story so far (up,down,up again,down
again) and the conversation moved onto songwriting and then onto a very
interesting question. Which was 'what exactly IS music?'. It's a good
one.... Music is very odd. It is colourless, odourless (apart from acid jazz
which stinks of fish) invisible and only exists in the heads of people who
listen to it. And people who write it. And it is tremendously powerful and
important and universally valued (apart from switzerland where they prefer
mime). But WHERE IS IT? IF I PUT IT IN A BAG, the bag REMAINS EMPTY.....

Nonetheless I am a Musician. It's my job. I even get paid for doing it. (not
really, that would be ridiculous...)
So i'm like a builder who makes walls out of nothing, that you can't put
anything on, but that everyone agrees are there. Unless they don't want to
err.... listen to them. Oh dear. Analogy poorly thought out. Abort.

Music and art and new ideas and insight are all around us all the time like
a celestial fart. Some people can't smell it. Artists and musicians and
geniuses are just odd people who can smell it. Who love smelling it, who try
and get Him to do one under the duvet and dive under, nostrils gaping.
Because we live on it. And we can turn it into something that lots of people
can smell, or read or hear. And that makes people happy. And that's why it's
good being a musician.

New album's out soon.
If you listen to it. It will exist. And i'd like that.

Bye then,
Matt
x

How's The Hip?

Hello everyone, hope this finds you well. How's the hip?
So. Somehow or other it's just 4 weeks until Memory man gets it official UK
and european release. For those who've been waiting nicely with their arms
folded, your patience is noted. Those who have been racing round the
playground like you've just been given Skittles, your enthusiasm is also
noted. (nope, not sure what i'm on about either...)
Anyhow it will be great to release my THIRD album at last.

The best thing about putting out a third album is the chance to get a third
round of album reviews. (not actually the best thing.)
some artists would claim not to read reviews, others not to care about them
Me, I can't help but want to know what THEY make of it - will it be hailed
as pet sounds multiplied by ok computer (which did actually happen once, in
'Rolling Stone' no less...) or as X and Y divided by Back to Bedlam divided
by the last Robbie record (as I believe also just happened, in the NME no
less...)?
Of course it doesn't exactly matter what THEY think. It certainly matters a
lot less than what YOU think. I care a lot about the music I make and memory
man was made with a great deal of love and devotion and nail biting and
arguing. I'm really looking forward to YOUR reviews. For the record, here's
mine:
" the rubber sheet is off. The 'jamas are bone dry. If 'Aqualung' was a
ships biscuit and 'still life' was a sad cake, 'Memory Man' is a cybernetic
space-rusk bulging with nutrients you never knew you needed. But that you
can't live without. (two stars) "

See you soon,
Matt x