(2018) Scott Matthew - Ode to Others
Review:
The singer/songwriter Scott Matthew was born in Queensland, Australia and now lives in New York. He has described himself as a ‘Quiet-Noise-Maker’ with a passion for ballads. In April 2018 Matthew released his 6th solo album Ode to Others. With this album there is a departure from the subject of romantic love and the disappointments that can come from such endeavors.
…The Public and the Private, the big things and the small things merge together within the lyrics he wrote for Ode to Others: ‘Where I Come From’ is the Ode to his father Ian, ‘Cease and Desist’ is dedicated to his deceased uncle Paul and in ‘Not Just Another Year’ he celebrates his best friend Michael, on the occasion of the anniversary of his relationship – which, cursed life has meanwhile come to an end. As he views these people, who mean a lot, sometimes even everything, he also broadens his outlook onto places from the past and the present. Places like his Australian childhood (‘Flame Trees’ is a cover from the Australian band Cold Chisel); New York, where Scott has been living for 20 years now, meanwhile as an American citizen (The Sidewalks Of New York, a historic song originally written by J.W. Blake in the late 19th century) or the medieval, Portuguese village Santarém where he assures himself as a ecstatic wanderer his literal access to the world, „What I love most maybe glory lost / Or the sadness that’s sweet / Or the ones under our feet“. Scott`s eye on the world is the one of a loving, of an admirer, but sometimes of a mourner too. For example The Wish is a song about the massacre in Orlando (June 12, 2016) when a single perpetrator invaded the Pulse club and shot 49 people dead, most of them members of the LGBT community. A few hours later Scott wrote the lyrics, expressing a sense of total powerlessness: „This is an assault against love /
Still no-one helps, they just pray above / And I wish I could help / I wish I could have helped”. However, paralyzing helplessness in the face of unbearable violence should not be the last word. This is clear with the beginning of the new album and the first Song End Of Days, an ode to the resistance and the resisting that, in this case, is directed against the policies of the current incumbent US President. Scott Matthew uses “we” for those who do not want to submit and accept. „We may be trembling with fear, it won’t hold us back / We ain’t going away / We’re gonna stay till the end of days“ . Love directs and fulfills this attitude.The narrator of this song does not want to encounter hatred with hatred, but with the universal power of love that never fades and lasts until the end of days. None of his last five solo records is as diverse; as beautiful orchestrated and complex in arrangements as Ode To Others. This is the result of the collaboration with Scott’s live guitarist, co-writer and producer Jürgen Stark. „I didn’t even know whether I liked my songs – before Jürgen came along and gave them all this personality and all this wonderfully intricate layering“. He’s very proud of his new album Scott Matthew says: „I think it’s one of the best albums we’ve done so far, for a lot of reasons. The idea of minimalism wasn’t very prominent on this album. But it’s not bombastic to me. It’s still got intimacy, but also all this intricate layers. And in the end – all this history.” One could think of the album Ode To Others as a musical new beginning of Scott Matthew. But that is not quite true. It is rather the result of a change of perspective. From one who looks out into the world of the present and the past and thereby discovers himself in a new way, as a loving, admiring, sometimes even as a contemptuous observer.
Tracklist:
01-End of Days
02-The Deserter
03-Where I Come From
04-Happy End
05-Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
06-The Wish
07-Not Just Another Year
08-Cease and Desist
09-Flame Trees
10-The Sidewalks of New York
Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: indie-pop
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 604-868 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
