Matthew Quinet
Lessons From The Wilderness
© 2006 Matthew Quinet (634479473753) (format: CD-R)
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Lyrically driven indie folk/americana
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Like many folks who were born to create music, Matthew Quinet has lived a good deal of his life to this point as a bit of a vagabond--hopping from city to city, in hopes that the most recent move will be his last, and that he will have finally found his elusive Atlantis. That being the place where the weather is temperate, the people aren't fools, and they make and appreciate good music. The kind of music he makes. Starting off in his home state of Indiana, then making his way to Boston, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and finally Austin, Quinet's discontented trek for the perfect hitching post has produced some gratifyingly rich exhaust fumes in the forms of his post-modern (or anti-) folk.
Eschewing college in place of some Living University, Quinet began--as most initially do--writing songs in the vein of his heroes, Dylan, Cash, Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, on an acoustic guitar in his late teens/early twenties.
Quinet's chief focus and strong-suit, seperating him from the singer-songwriter pack who are content to strum and hum away, feeling content as long as their melodies have some words attached to them.
Quinet honed his songwriting in the least likely and longest occupied of his stops, L.A., home of hair bands and botox high colonics. Working coffeeshops and horse ranches by day and writing well-crafted tunes in his kitchen at night. Quinet amassed an impressive repertoire which he ocassionally bemused the Phlistines with in some of his rare public performances. Along the way he made a handful of homemade recordings of very good songs, but these, sadly, due to his songwriter's disease--the chronic lack of self-promoting gene found so preventaly in the un-gifted--they never saw the light of day, but for the private collection of a few close and forturnate friends.
"Lessons from the Wilderness" changes that. Recorded in what the liner notes describe as a "hayloft apartment", Matthew Quinet's first official album release announces--albeit in sort of a angry, teary-eyed whisper--that his sweat stained flat cap has officially been thrown in the ring. This is a record that's only reference point maybe a long lost brother of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska". Short of that record, one is hard pressed to find a similar and appropriate reference point for the these song's as a collective. Pleasantly afflicted with the so-soon forgotten and yet nostalgic sound of tape hiss providing the dirt floor foundation for his coolly efficient acoustic guitar work and simple if odd arrangements (answering affirmative to the age old question, "can a synth tuba work on a folk record?) "Wilderness" is simply a marvelous odd-ball of a journey from beginning to end. It features Quinet's strongest songwriting to date.
The inevitable bass drum, constant guitar strumming and gypsy strings of the first song "Strange Gift" serves to warn the listener that the record that's about to unfold--which itself is a metaphor for our own mortal-coil-is going to be a mysterious, bumby ride. Then, with a wink, seemingly to dispel the listeners concern, the next song (the brilliantly titled "Lexapro Zydeco Blues") starts with a sqeeze-box oom-pah of a New Orleans zydeco tune that plays against the serious fable the lyric spins. The rest of the record continues in this fashion: establishing a pattern which gets the listener comfortable thinking they know what to expect, and then the rug gets ripped out from under them. And everytime it happens, you're glad.
"Lessons from the Wilderness" is a rich, deceptively sophisticated record that will grow on you and with you. This is a record the indoctrinated will look back on as not only a classic, but the one that, rightfully, gave this tremendously gifted singer-songwriter his belated start, providing one of life's few things that are actually worth the wait.
CL
Los Angeles, CA
reviews
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- author: BILLIE STEFFEE
THIS IS HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL. WELL DONE, MATT.
Home Again in Indiana
author: BenjyGreat music, Takes me to many forgotten places...Vincennes, Turkey Run & Brown County, Indiana. Keep up the good work Matt !
Brilliant!!!!
author: Jim YoungI think what separates Matt from alot of musicians is his great lyrics that he writes. He is a true artist!! He writes music for himself and others are just lucky to hear it. He is not trying to be a chart buster but he just creates brilliant art that i hope he shares with me for years to come!!!!!
Music can help !!
author: Trey Rogerstook me back to the days when I wasn't feeling nostalgic - just glad to be kickin'...
Stunning, sharp-edged, lo-fi folk.
author: Corey LandisOne of my favorite records of this year so far. A "mood" record in rarefied company, and the kind of music that even few bother to make anymore--let alone do WELL. An incredible debut.