When I originally got the request to interview Matt Bauer, I was thinking it was an email from the WXOU sports department but in actuality, it was for folk singer Matt Bauer who is playing tonight at the Magic Stick Lounge with Gun Lake and Dana Falconberry. When I caught up with Matt, he was driving to Grand Rapids from Chicago for a show and for what will be his first time in Michigan .
To get myself in spirit for the interview, I was listening to some songs off his website and his darker American song got me thinking more “Country Death Song” by Violent Femmes than more lighthearted fare. Then again, some of the best traditional music does have a darker edge. While he thinks of himself mostly as country, he feels he became into the folk field due to the fact that he plays acoustic. He admits “folk is a weird complicated bird”, he mainly listens to country, bluegrass and steel. Bauer himself got to this point in his music career listening to bands like Uncle Tupelo when he decided to listen to the bands that influenced the bands he was listening to. He found himself drifting to country music artists like Bill Monroe, patsy Cline, Bob Wells and the Stanley Brothers as well as the Smithsonian collection of Folk Music of Kentucky.
Though Matt now lives I the big city (Brooklyn to be exact), he grew up near Jessamine County in Kentucky . The area itself is mostly a farming and horse raising territory as well as being the home to country stars John Michael Montgomery and bluegrass banjo player JD Crowe. Bauer’s darker 2008 album “The Island Moved In the Storm” was loosely based on the unsolved murder of a woman in the area. Apparently in 1968, the body of a woman was found but was so mangled by animals that the body was totally unidentifiable. This was before DNA testing and other forensics was available. It was “loosely centered on the story but tried to stay somewhat upbeat as think of the possibilities of life”. There is that element of “being overwhelmed by possibilities” where “what you write takes over” and he wanted a lighter tone for the new album which just came out last month.
The album is called “Jessamine County Book Of the Living” which while focusing on the same feeling for the area, is more like chamber folk. The album has more brass and woodwinds, like a “mini-orchestra” that contrast to the banjo driven prior album. Matt wanted to have bigger arrangements and he brought in guests light Jolie Holland (who sings on the beautiful “Blacklight Horses” and a few others), members of the California based Walking In Sunlight and a few other people he has met along the way. Matt enjoys the mix when the guests can bring something fresh and different to his arrangement. I enjoy “when they bring something unexpected and something new to me that I wouldn’t think of”.
In regards to the album, the county inspires the music. It is an area where recently they are capturing coyotes and releasing them farther away. There are deer in the subdivisions and blue herons flying overhead. He grew up on the border of Jessamine which has some beautiful woodlands. Lexington continues to expand and the borders of woodlands and suburbs is encroaching which does color the music on the album. The song “Backlight Horses” for example is about the perspective of a person trying to figure what’s going on in the darkness. For example, how does a deer look at us and what does he think about the way we do things. It is about that interconnectiveness with nature and the world around us. I’m not sure what a deer thinks, but I do know when I look at Matt Bauer, I see a man who can put out music that is either haunting or uplifting, moving and thought-provoking. If you have the opportunity, check out Matt as he makes his Detroit debut tonight.
You can find out more about Bauer at his website http://mattbauermusic.com/ and now check out this video.