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Matthew Young is a pop savant whose career is off to a good start.
REVIEW: If you don’t participate Beyoncé’s Renaissance this weekend, two talented Tāmaki Makaurau guitarists offer a few choice, several alternatives.
Matthew Young is a pop savant whose career is off to a good start.
His first live show was the opening for Lorde at Auckland’s Powerstation (no pressure) and his early releases got a lot of radio support across the ditch. Hey, Collect and It’s Love were all championed by the influential state broadcaster Triple J, preparing the audience for his debut album It’s A Feeling.
What feeling are you asking?
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Well, identity and insecurity are prominent, but only on a personal level. Young seems flexible when it comes to romance, not sure if he wants to fool or belong, but he makes a strong case for both.
Headcase (an obvious choice for lead single) brings the voices in Young’s head to life and uses battle instruments (including a glorious saxophone) to represent conflicting sides of his personality.
And on Boneheaded, he shows skepticism about the vampire demands of his chosen profession, but not because of the imposter syndrome. Young knows he has the goods, he just wonders if pursuing pop dreams leads to a meaningful life path.
He’s a great guitarist and many of these songs are built around inspired, inventive riffs. Electro doo-wop with emo tendencies, songs vibrate with a distinct personality. In the beginning he worked with top producers, but this record seems to be almost entirely a solo effort – and he consistently makes interesting choices.
Belong, for example, is sparse and understated, even if it begs to be over-orchestrated and bombasticly hyper-produced. I swear the drum fills are a human pretending to be a drum kit. It’s like someone performing the iconic In The Air Tonight moment at karaoke. It’s weird, wacky and cool.
On the other hand, Fool around and Ziptied add harmony and go big to touch all feelings. To be absent is genius. They are all great examples of lyrical prowess, his metaphorical sensibilities and sharp, melodic hooks.
Young ensures that his debut is a work he will look back on with pride. He has a great future in the game – whether he pursues it or not remains to be seen.
Former Mockers guitarist Brett Adams just released an instrumental record this week that sounded excellent to command attention against a suitably stormy backdrop at my house.
Black Clouds In Stereo sounds a bit like the expansive prog-rock merchants Mogwai when they use live drums, and a bit like Tycho or Avalanches when programmed percussion dominates and it transitions into downbeat electro-lounge territory.
The whole thing washed over me like a warm sonic bath.
I absolutely loved the fairies on my first listen. I didn’t even pay attention to the song titles (an absolute professional minimum) until Azimuth shook me in the present with a soft synthetic bass that did like a vitamin shot midway through the album.
Small spoken fragments and samples pepper the record as it shifts from mood to mood. There’s also, perhaps obviously, some really cool guitar work going on.
Adams is a sought after session musician for the likes of Tami Neilson and Tim Finn and his band The Bads (featuring Dianne Swann) has a devoted following. But this, his first solo outing, is a brilliant sideways step, an atmospheric bubble of transporting glory that fits nicely into Aotearoa’s strong tradition of exploratory, guitar-centric instrumental music.