Eric Matthews – Foundation Sounds

I give Eric Matthews credit for creating Foundation Sounds wholecloth. The only other credited musician is Dolly Mixture on clarinet on a single song, which is impressive considering the opening track has vocals, bass, guitar, drums, keyboards, and horns.

However, this isn’t always to Matthews’ advantage, especially on the drums. Second track “Sorry” has as part of its basic rhythm a severe cymbal crash that threatens to drown out even Matthews high-up-in-the-mix vocals, which just wouldn’t have happened had Matthews gotten someone else on drums. Third track “Gold” has much the same problem — it’s so heavy on the cymbals that the listener gets the sense that the drums are supposed to insistent or pervasive when what they become is annoying and overpowering. Fourth track “When You Should be There” has such supremely workaday drum work that it’s almost laughable; the song would be better off without drums than the ones Matthews supplies.

But, really, with an album like this, it’s not the drums that matter but Matthews’ vision. When an artist has committed so much of himself to an album as to play all the instruments and record and produce all the tracks, it becomes less a matter of appreciating the whole — because that will hold up as the musical vision is a lone figure’s head — but in appreciating the mission. And that’s not as easy as it should be.

Thing is, Matthews puts his voice extremely high in the mix when his breathy bass is better suited to accompanying the music. It frequently overpowers all the music he’s gone to such trouble to create. More than that, after about the fifth song using basically the same arrangement, the whole thing becomes dull. It’s like listening to an XTC average-of composed entirely of non-singles.

There’s nothing exciting about Matthews’ work, and that’s sad. There appears to be no overall aim. On Doctor Syntax (2002), Edwyn Collins, who did much the same there as Matthews does on Sounds, takes the idea that he’s about to die and shares his dreams, frustrations, hopes, and sorrows with any and all who will listen. The result is a magical album that does everything Matthews wants to do but better because there’s a goal beyond merely making an album.

It’s not that I want Matthews to suffer a tragic stroke at his critical peak (as Collins did in 2005) or that I want his lover to leave him or an important family member to die, but artistic vision without artistic mission is wasted. “Here’s the album I’ve always wanted to do,” Matthews implies on Sounds. And I ask, “Why?”

I get the sense there’s no good answer. Maybe, “Because I don’t trust anyone else with my music,” or, “Because only I know how it should sound,” but, really, is that good enough? Just because you have a bunch of songs does not obligate you to record them, especially if you can’t point to a song that will really rope people into your particular vision.

A big problem with Sounds is its length. Its 17 songs nearly fill an entire CD at almost 70 minutes. This gives it a sprawling quality that a shorter, more focused album wouldn’t have. This running time is such a detriment that you’ll probably never even reach the best songs on the album, the organ-driven “The Fly” (which changes not tempo but at least instrumentation to some degree and forces Matthews to sing in a slightly different manner), which is track 15, and the acoustic-guitar-driven “And the World Will Go” (which has the best opening of any song on the album), which is track 16.

Sounds is functional, mid-tempo background music aspiring to be something more and not achieving it. It takes no risks. There’s no great beauty. The lyrics are uninspired and uninspiring. You ever catch a television drama, watch the whole thing, and think, “That was okay, but I won’t build my schedule around it”? Eric Matthews’ Foundation Sounds is just like that: listenable once but not worth any kind of actual commitment.