Don't you just hate it?

Don't you just hate it when people leave out of date blogs posted on their front pages for months at an end?
It's like going round someone's house in April and finding cobwebbed Christmas decorations and ancient-old-man's-balls-balloons dangling everywhere. it just screams 'DISTRACTED' or possibly 'DEAD'. It certainly suggests 'I'M NEVER COMING BACK' . And who could blame you...

So I apologise. It's my fault. I have been distracted, but I'm not yet dead.

How's things? Really? Oh well...

I started 2008 in Los Angeles which is in America. (WWWesscoasss') (west coast).
I was there producing an album for a band called KaiserCartel. They are two elementary school teachers from Brooklyn. One is called Courtney and is a girl. The other one is called Benjamin and is a boy. Courtney (guitar, vox, piano, drums) is extremely cat-ish and Benjamin (drums, vox, guitar, birthdays) is extremely dog-ish. You would expect them to just chase each other around the studio the whole time yapping and hissing but they didn't. Not all the time. They both have wonderful voices and make music that is simultaneously eccentric and classic. They use no bass - I like this because you can really hear the kick drum and the thrum of the acoustic guitars.
I made Courtney record the sound of their house to put into one of the mixes because I wanted the place that the songs come from to be in the recording somewhere but it got left off in the end. That means I've got a recording of their apartment which I like to listen to and imagine I'm not me. But them. And they're not them. But me....
The album we made together is called 'March Forth' and will be out in June on bluhammock. I'm proud to have been involved in it. I suggest you check it out.

Why am I writing in such short sentences? I guess I'm thinking in short bursts to save energy.

After mixing their album (mixing hurt my brain) I turned my attention to the mighty 'lung. I decided to celebrate my independence by recording a selection of lungsongs from the 3 records in an all-new twinkly acoustic style. Me and Ben (brother, younger, hairier, big hands) and Dave (over-talented, sweetfaced, hairy, medium hands rising to large by late afternoon if bongo-d) are doing it. So far it sounds rather lovely. Maybe next time I'll let you hear some... If any of you have any great titles for an album of acoustic reworkings I'd be interested to hear them. Otherwise it'll probably be called 'ACOUSTICON 4: SOUND BEYOND SOUND'.
Help me.

Hope your Aprils go well,

love from

matt
x

A holiday message from Uncle Matt

Dearest little elves,

I hope the year is drawing to a close in an elegant and enjoyable fashion, like an expertly judged soiree.

Whilst crunching through the frosty london streets I find myself remembering end-of-years-past: gazing out of the bay window onto the snow-covered front garden of our house in Ireland when I was 5, listening to 'when I kissed the teacher' by ABBA, lost in exquisite melancholy; singing the grand old carols in the choir with my family and friends at midnight mass, replacing the word 'God' with 'Bean' and being frowned at by Wilf the angry choirmaster with the wild eyebrows and the epileptic wife; enjoying a random home-made drink in an unmarked plastic bottle from a complete stranger on a train on the eve of the new millennium, singing 'La Cucaracha as we fought our way to the riverside for the fireworks, losing the powers of speech and movement and being sick in a bin again and again and again and again and again and again. And again. Oh, and again.. sorry Dom. Sorry Kim. Sorry everyone.

So what will next year bring for us all? Good things I hope. Surprising Good Things like finding a bit of bacon in your dressing gown pocket, or discovering that the one you secretly like, secretly likes you.

It's been an interesting year for me. In the first half we released our new album and toured around the world. We had sushi in Alabama and burgers in Osaka, ruined an extraordinary bottle of wine with ordinary cigars (literally AND metaphorically), watched an apocalyptic lightning storm and went in the sea in our underpants. So many adventures and fine times and of course we met YOU. I hope we weren't rude. And we sang the songs and you sang along and we made up stupid songs and you were mystified and you clapped and we were pleased.

Then it was the second half of the year and I got dropped, came home and wondered what to do next. And then all sorts of things started happening and I'm writing and producing and full of energy and music and I just don't know quite what to do with it all. I guess that's what next year is for.... I'll be sure to let you know.

So I wish you a merry. And a happy new.

Take care of yourselves.

With love

Matt, x.

Memory Man

Aquablog

After years of bloody-minded refusal we've finally got Matt to enter the blogsphere.
Read him here.