Iain Matthews

I bought another Iain Matthews record a couple of weeks ago, the 1993 Skeleton Keys, which, of course, after Fairport Convention, after Matthews Southern Comfort (where he had a pretty monster hit with "Woodstock") and even after Plainsong. In fact, it's well into the obscure, poorly marketed years, but it's not clear why. Matthews, here as in the more famous parts of his career, has got a really lovely voice, though, and writes some really interesting, complicated, ambiguous little songs...I'm liking "Jumping Off the Roof" and "Back of the Bus" in particular, but it took a good deal of listening to the words before I got into them.

Here he is playing with former Fairport Convention cohort Richard Thompson at the 2007 Cropredy festival.


And here's the only youtube I could find for Skeleton Keys and un-video of "Every Crushing Blow"


I don't like Skeleton Keys as much as If You Could See Through My Eyes which I reviewed for Dusted a while ago, but I do like it.

Richard Thompson live album

I had some reservations about the new Richard Thompson album, Dream Attic, which I aired over the weekend in Venus, observing:

So, while Dream Attic supplies everything you want from Richard Thompson—the ornery humor (“The Money Shuffle”), the soul-searching lyricism (“A Brother Slips Away”, “If Love Whispers Your Name”), the slyly updated murder ballads (“Sidney Wells”), the striking folk-blues guitar work (“Stumble On”)—it also has intervals of forced, uncomfortable gaiety. There are penny whistle stretches in “Here Comes Geordie” that makes you wonder if Thompson has seen Riverdance one too many times, and an over-long, over-happy “dance, dance, dance” break in “Demons in Her Dancing Shoes” that leads one to speculate he may be plotting some sort of PBS pledge drive.

The rest is here

I put "Big Sun Falling in the River" on my August Mix, which I think you can still get here.

Or you can watch the man perform "Bad Again"