Matt claims that it’s just like the movies and the truth is that listening to his cd is as if someone had composed the soundtrack for a movie based on your life. Now, how often can you say something like that for a debut album?

I am not a music critic more than I am a critic of anything. But I like music and I honestly admire talented people, especially those with talent in music -writing songs, playing instruments- simply because I have not. Moreover, in this era where cheap pop or pseudo-rock with repetitive lyrics and melodies is the passport to success and recognition, those who have something original to present and do not follow the trend deserve praise.
I first saw Matt in Goldsmith’s Musical Society production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch; he was the musical director and he played the keyboards. Then, a friend of mine had one of his songs, ‘Just Like the Movies’, playing in her myspace account. It was love at first hearing. It was fresh, sweet and original. After almost three months he had a launch party for his first cd. I decided to go because I wanted to hear him play live and also to listen to the other songs. I was almost sure that I would buy the cd in the end of the night (support Goldsmiths graduates!!!) but I would feel much better if I made sure that the rest of the cd would be as good as ‘Just like the Movies’ promised to be.
Well, it was a great live. Both the live performance and the cd have mainly an acoustic atmosphere with the piano being the king of the instruments but in the cd it is accompanied by trumpets, drums and quitars. The songs are surprising; they combine a variety of styles but there is a sonic coherence that is captivating; when you start listening to the first song, you have to listen till the very last. And every time I listen to the ‘Infatuated’, at the part where Matt declares ‘no, I am not in love’, I have to stamp my feet the way I stamped it at his live due to ‘lack of a drummer’!!
Since all criticism is subjective, I will mention my very favourites and then, because I believe that the songs can speak for themselves, I will write some of the lyrics in an attempt to show how true these songs are.
Personal favourites then, ‘Second-Hand Smoke’, ‘The finer points of being happy’ and ‘Pucksong’
followed by the lines from ‘Life on Earth’ that prove how close to real life Matt is:
And so we live by the artefacts we collect
by the memories we select
by the fantasies we forget we fantasize
Strange, all this time we have to change
though we rarely re-arrange
our life on earth

I am pretty sure that there are a lot of musicians like Matt, studying in colleges and recording their cds with the help of friends, classmates and fellow musicians, covering the expenses themselves, and searching for gigs to play. They have things to say that the already rich and famous guys have long forgotten. So, next time you feel like buying a cd, a trip to independent productions may reveal the music treasures you were looking for.