2010 was the year of bands already well in the consciousness further establishing themselves as big time players; Arcade Fire (the winners of the Gobshout Album Of The Year, lest we forget), The National, Efterklang and LCD Soundsystem all released outstanding records that were met with generally effusive acclaim by fans and critics alike.  Similarly, in the UK Mystery Jets and Foals both nudged themselves further into the mainstream with hook-laden efforts, though the second offering from Klaxons didn’t quite live up to expectations, critically or commercially,

However, if 2010 is to belong to anyone, if anyone can really lay claim to having stamped their (rather long) name all over the first year of the decade then it is surely Kristian Matsson, or The Tallest Man On Earth.

A new album and a new E.P, a re-released album and E.P, a tour that has taken in Europe, The US and everywhere inbetween have seen his stock slowly rise to its current point of folk semi-hero.   Most revered among this output is The Wild Hunt, released back in April and a very high ranker in the Top albums of the year for this writer. Ten songs of wonderful simplicity each form part of a carefully created whole; throughout it is just Matsson and his artfully plucked guitar, until final ballad ‘Kids On The Run’ drops some melancholy piano that sweeps the album from under your feet in the manner of all the best Springsteen relatives.  It’s an incredible track,  an ode to the notches we’ve left behind and are still to etch into our bedposts that climaxes with a moment to rival ‘it’s gonna be a glorious day’ in terms of spine-tickling, album tension-snapping:  ‘And til the terror of our time could forgive us as lovers/ Oh, lets break some hearts.’

In an album full of continually high standards, mid-album duo ‘The Drying Of The Lawns’ and ‘King Of Spain’ endure as the other Dylan-influenced pinnacles, the latter being his most well known song with a chorus that was created to be hoarsely sung back at him by the beer-stained masses.    Both aspirational and complimentary, it’s an ode to the country of the title and to the all-too-easily crushable dreams we all have as impressionable fools; all senorita’s sighing, boots of Spanish leather and stealing eagle’s wings. 


                            

Matsson followed his well received first effort with the Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird E.P, and in tone it feels very much an extension of The Wild Hunt.  ‘The Dreamer,’ measures up to anything on that record, with its bluesy guitar lick and instantly memorable chorus of:

Oh sometimes the blues is just a passing bird
And why can't that always be,
Tossing aside from your birches crown,
Just enough dark to see,
How you're the light over me.

Like most of his best moments, he uses a natural metaphor to mediate on the joy of love and youth, but shoots it through with a sliver of melancholy that’ll tweak the ticker strings of anyone that’s ever had the fortune to have loved and lost. 

From there to his eponymous E.P  and ‘Walk The Line,’ first released back in 2007, which considering the title is fittingly reminiscent of Cashand sounds like it should have been on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?  There’s a few less singalong moments, overall it’s a little darker in tone, and his finger-work seems a little more intricate, especially on ‘Over The Hills’ and ‘Into The Stream.’    A preoccupation with nature then continues  and comes further to the fore with his final output of the year, re-issued first album Shallow Grave, which is littered with titles such as ‘Where Do My Bluebird Fly,’ ‘The Blizzard’s Never Seen The Desert Sands’ and ‘The Sparrow and the Medicine.’    The sparrow reference is something that rears its head throughout his work, and a fitting self-comparison for the Swede- sturdy yet wispy and prone to flights of fancy.

The relative success of Matsson’s second releases, and especially the accessibility of ‘King Of Spain,’ ensured that when we shuffled into Camden’s Electric Ballroom back in November there was a tangible sense of anticipation in the air- his last shows in England had been back around the release of The Wild Hunt, and since then his popularity had soared.  The crowd was surprising; the expected proliferation of wispily bearded men was backed up by a discernible cor-blimey contingent, surely an indication that he has now stepped up to the next rung.


                             


And deserve it he does because he puts on a moving, gutsy show.  Just him, his guitars and a chair, he lurches around as the music requires, sometimes pausing to sit on the plastic chair during moments of particular complexity, of which there are many. As with any artist, there was anticipation for the showpiece tunes (‘King Of Spain’ was bellowed with such gusto by the crowd that one might have thought they’d spent the day sinking sangria with King Juan Carlos himself) but his skill was to hold attention throughout, whether playing familiar or unfamiliar songs-no mean feat when you are the only moving thing on a stage in front of 400 people.

He also showed himself as a perfomer of real confidence, despite the self deprecation of lines such as ‘I plan to be forgotten when I’m gone’ on 'The Wild Hunt', which soars and sinks into every heart in the joint. Gaps inbetween songs are peppered with anecdotes and reflections on his pleasure at how far he’s come and he reveals, perhaps surprisingly, a huge love for Annie Lennox and insists that she, Emmylou Harris and Patsy Cline have influenced his work more than Dylan, who the lazy among us (guilty as charged) ritually compare him to.

By the time it comes to an encore of ‘The Dreamer’ and ‘Kids On The Run’ he has the audience on its knees (not really, but you know what I mean) and is making a mockery of the slightly dodgy Electric Ballroom acoustics as he bellows that pivotal line from the latter.   The raptured crowd erupts and he thanks everyone profusely before bowing low: A fitting end to a fabulous year.

 

Posted In Features, Dec 20 2010. Words - David