Matt Elliott - The Broken Man

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5...according to our Phil on Wed 15 Feb, 2012.

Woo! The angry man (the musical version of the Hulk) is back with a brand new opus on his new seemingly permanent home Ici D'Ailleurs. If you found his 'Songs' trilogy maudlin you ain't heard nothing yet. This collection of seven tracks is amongst his most sombre work yet. It's absolutely beautiful though at the same time which is a remarkable feat. It sounds like he's been hanging around Spain a lot as there's plenty of Spanish flamenco guitar in there, but you can hear folk from all over Europe in there. The opener 'Oh How We Fell' is an amalgamation of all I've said already. Beautiful yet maudlin...it's the right side of depressing as well. Some records make you want to hack your own head off but this album has a beauty about it which is unrivalled. Despite all of this beauty 'The Broken Man' is a dark and haunting beast which will take you on a journey around Parisian bars, Spanish flamenco bars, bars full of drunk people and you're the drunkest person in there lamenting on how your life has collapsed all around you. Seems like only yesterday eh! Listening to Matt singing 'This Is How It Feels To be Alone' throughout 'Dust Flesh & Bones' is a sobering listen and it's one that will haunt you. This is truly moving and spiritual music sung and played from the heart and it's an album that you will play over and over again.

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A new chapter entitled 'The Broken Man' is about to open and is the most delicate of Elliott's albums to date. The angry noise has all but abated, making way for more fragile melodies and a more subtle approach to intensity to immerse the listener. Ideally listened to in total darkness to discover the hope hidden deep within the guitars, voice, choirs, bells, ethereal trumpets, the howl of the dog beneath the skin, in the sincerity of the music. Inspired by the ghosts of European folk music, the voice often resigned but always expressive. Always finding new ways of working, Elliott collaborated with Katia Labeque who interpreted an improvisation of his that became the backbone of one of the central epic pieces on this album 'If Anyone Ever Tells Me That it is Better to Have Loved and Lost Than to Have Never Loved At All I Will Stab Them in the Face'. 'Dust Flesh and Bones', another of the epic pieces on this album, is perhaps Elliott's most beautiful and moving work to date, simple in its form but emotionally profound. 'The Pain that's Yet to Come' hints at a new almost psychedelic era to come. Listen here : www.icidailleurs.com/fichier/promo/broken_man/promo_broken_man.html 'The Broken Man' is an album to be discovered gradually over many listens, and with each one a new depth is surrendered until one can appreciate the panorama in its entirety. Each track is an invitation to explore one man’s analysis of his own descent reflecting the frustrations and sadness that touch us all at some point. Mixed by YANN TIERSEN this album is a bridge between the more acoustic work of 'Songs' and the more electronic, ethereal work of Third Eye Foundation. It is finely balanced in the centre of Matt's musical universe. Confirmed Reviews : Uncut, Dazed & Confused, Artrocker, Vice, Subba Cultcha, Music OMH, The Music Fix…

Tracklist:

1. Oh How We Fell
2. Please Please Please
3. Dust Flesh and Bones
4. How To Kill A Rose
5. If Anyone Ever Tells Me That it is Better to Have Loved and Lost Than to Have Never Loved At All I Will Stab Them in the Face
6. This is for
7. The Pain that’s yet to come

Brian Dingyhoovers said:

'Some records make you want to hack your own head off but this album has a beauty about it which is unrivalled' this should be plastered on the side of a building somewhere, or maybe just a bus stop in Syria

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