Netlabel Homophoni takes the listener down a different sonic pathway this time via some pastoral, guitar-born ambiance. Thatch (and its companion piece Hut ) is the debut netlabel release of one Matthew Mullane, a 20-year old Art History student from Ohio presently studying in Osaka, Japan. Matthew also has a release on the Autumn Records Leaves CD-R series titled Sound-Shapes from Rural Ohio - September 2005 - May 2006.
Matthew identifies his musical influences as diverse and many including contemporary composition, improvisation (free jazz, electro-acoustic), and American finger-picking. He considers his personal musical lineage as far from being static. Instead, it’s in a state of constant flux as new sounds and ideas are introduced to his ears.
Although not immediately evident to the listener unless it’s pointed out, these two pieces are intimately linked to Matthew’s personal life with only the track titles giving a hint to this fact. Recorded more than a year ago, Thatch (along with Hut) make reference to the solitary lifestyle of the ancient Chinese poets who lived during the T’ang Dynasty, especially Po Chu I. Some of these poets lived secluded lives in thatched huts and exemplified the rustic notion of artistic isolation - an ideal from which Matthew drew inspiration for these pieces.
Thatch was recorded live, in one take, and with no overdubbing. Guitar, synthesizer, and field recordings are the main ingredients. As already mentioned in the lead text, the initial couple of minutes of Thatch is a gritty wash of noise and field recordings interrupted only occasionally by a dose of low frequency feedback. When those spacious, deliberately plucked guitar notes start to surface, rising above the grainy backdrop of noise and field recordings, that’s when the pastoral image of the artist in seclusion begins to take shape. For some ten minutes these beautiful, solitary guitar melodies emerge, resonate, and then disappear into a misty background of gentle noise and feedback only to repeat this cycle until, in the end, the piece simply evaporates.
If you've ever had a conversation with a person that has lived a relatively reclusive, contemplative life, then you know that the dialogue can be sparse with lots of space between words. However, the content is rich, insightful, and worth savoring. With this in mind, I'd recommend listening to Matthew Mullane's Thatch (and its counterpart Hut) to experience a similar exchange in the language of music.
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