How could I describe Manchester based Jake Mattison and do him enough justice? That’s always the first question that enters my head when I come across someone who makes such an immediate impression. Getting musically technical is like describing a sunset with physics, music is about emotional movement, so I’m going to opt for how this makes ME feel, not your typical review but I’d struggle to convey this music any other way and I hope to pick up some empathy along the way.
Do you remember hearing an artist that really swept you away with just one track…maybe it was the three part harmonies of Fleet Foxes, your first Bon Iver or the discovery for the first time of the back catalogue of John Martyn, Nick Drake or Sandy Denny! Discovery is the best part of running Folk Radio UK, I’m still like a kid when it come to music…always looking for the next thing. I blame it on listening late at night to a pocket transistor radio under my pillow as a kid when I should have been sleeping. John Peel and Andy Kershaw were my musical stalwarts.
Those memories came flooding back when I heard Jake Mattison for the first time last night…
I went through one of those emotional ‘WOW MOMENTS’ after hearing a live recording of ‘Michigan‘. His guitar playing is exquisite, not complicated, but perfectly matched to those unrushed and rich vocals…he knows exactly when to understate that guitar and bring in those gentle plaintive rifts. His music is comforting, it has a primal familarity I just can’t quite explain. This is music of the heart that carries a weighty emotional punch. I’ll be honest, this man is something else…this is gold dust!
http://www.jakemattison.co.uk/
Photo Credit: Clement Neveu