As much as we here in Canada long for the summer months, with days spent roaming comfortably chaotic urban landscapes or lounging around in the close intimacy of friends lake and fireside, ours is a winter nation, indelibly characterized by its long cold months of low light, huddled contemplation and plaintive, introspective song. That's not to say that the Great White North isn't as much about musical romp and rambunctiousness in all its many forms - for certain, headier aural blends, be they electric guitar or synth-led, are a necessity in keeping our weary bodies young. But there's something about the reflective nature of the folk-influenced sounds and spirit you hear and feel while staring through the bottom of an empty glass that at one time or another has introduced each us to our most isolated selves. It is from this place that Matthew Maaskant delivers his debut solo album, Believe It Or Not, This Is The Place.
This new collection of temperate and reflective gems, best described sonically by the singer, songwriter and producer himself as "folktronica", holds at its center a remarkable ability to draw listeners into themselves, though not in the 'woe is me' sense we often associate with so many softer, downtempo offerings. Instead, the calming moods and curious lyrical reflections heard on Believe It Or Not sweep casually from Maaskants soul in a way that brings at least a momentary stillness to your own.
The record marks a decidedly cohesive resurfacing for the rural-Ontario native, whose music first expanded beyond the walls of the backyard shed over a decade ago with his first group, the folk-reggae-directed qr5. The album's combination of tempered, introverted folk melodies and musings and its below- the-surface electronic underpinnings is immediately evident as Maaskant moves into the initial stretches of opener "Katie Cruel", its tradition lyrics floating above an audio wilderness of synthesized tones. Each of those elements, at first modestly introduced, expand and flourish as the singer moves through the poetic, procreative tale heard on "You Only Dream To Test Me", on their way to the notably more forceful "Atlas", a power struggle piece played out both sonically and verbally.
With each subsequent composition, Maaskant enriches his smartly concocted musical stew with greater quantities of emotive textures, from the dueling voices of "Fall To Pieces", ethereal harmonies of "Like A Thief In The Night", and the swooning strings heard on the earthy "Orange", to the home again finger plucking of rootsy closer "Fireflies". All of these many divergent touches are topped off by Matthew's own creamy, creatively muted vocals, craftily recorded and mixed in vacant barns and silos to produce the uniquely touching fragility felt throughout record.
Much of that attention to subtlety has carried over into the production work Maaskant has performed through his own Draft Tattoo studio for other like-minded yet equally multidimensional local artists and musicians, a hat he began to don with greater and greater frequency following the shutting down of qr5 back in 2006. Since then, the ambitious producer's thirst for unique challenges has led him down the bath of popular Brazilian songcraft behind Rio de Janeiro-expat Luanda Jones, through the more raucous grooves of electro duo Thunderheist and downtempo three-piece Lal, and on to the more experimental theatrics of local newcomer Bruno Capinan.
Maaskant's technical ingenuity has been hard fought for and earned through years of thoughtful investigation and the sharing of ideas with the many similarly forward-reaching musicians who've passed through his studio, a collaborative process that has taught him (among other things) that audio production and songwriting produce the best results when developed in tandem. In a way, Believe It Or Not was created as a means to fully explore this ideal, along with the notion that music should be so much more than simply a string of technically sound chord progressions, with those formulaic musical changes only existing to back a set of lyrics, or vice versa. Whether Matthew achieved his goal and confirmed that thesis to his liking is for him to decide, but the results of Maaskant's search for a more natural and emotionally fruitful way of songwriting found in his latest opus are plainly there for all to see.
Kevin Jones