Mat Callahan "A Wild Bouquet" (Broken Arrow)
By Abel Folgar
Friday. Jan 20, 3:38 PM
Honest, well-executed... a musical hero.

Mat Callahan wears many hats: singer, songwriter, activist, author, etc... He wears them well, or rather, as well and as honest as he can. He makes no attempts at grandiosity, his struggle is within a music industry that refuses to see it the way he sees it: with pure eyes. His work with The Looters helped establish the world-beat movement on the West Coast in the 1980s, he's founded artistic collectives, scored film and theatre, written books (like AK Press' The Trouble With Music), as well as put together two previous solo efforts in Europe.

A Wild Bouquet is his first U.S. solo work, and he's joined by many luminaries in the field like Matthew Brubeck, Les Claypool, Islam Shabazz, and Tara Jeffries. His compositions on this recording incorporate his worldly musical savoir-faire with ambience controlling poetics; he orchestrates the many musicians at his helm with a sense of evenness and fairness.

Stylistically, this hour-long album sticks within pop balladry in its purest sense, i.e. no silly gimmicks are pulled. His vocals are confident and inflect the appropriate emotions, allowing for minimalist soundscapes existing beneath. Tracks like "Show Me a Country" and "I See the Light" have tasty repeat flavor. Don't expect the acerbic slash of a tongue warmed in music-bullshit-hell: expect soft ruminations from a man obviously still in love with his muse. These are indeed beautiful, well-executed songs crafted by an honest musical hero.
www.matcallahan.com
www.brokenarrowrecords.com

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Abel Folgar

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