Matthew Jay was 24 years of age when he died on 24th September 2003.
Such tragedy surrounding the death of a young and talented singer/songwriter often leads to an overwhelming – and at times overstated - level of critical analysis by the music press, as well as long-term rumination within the general media about the continuing impact of the deceased artist’s work on the cultural psyche.
Matthew Jay’s legacy will not be measured in the same terms as Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley or Elliott Smith. Future bands and singer/songwriters will be neither lauded nor chastised for displaying musical and vocal traits that mirror the inflections of Matthew Jay.
He was simply not as well known, nor did he share the ‘troubled’ tag that went with these great and peerless musicians. By all accounts he was a relatively happy soul, who had enjoyed a normal upbringing in Wales with both parents, albeit one infused with music.
‘Draw’, his debut album, hit the shelves in April 2001. I bought it within a few days of release, galvanised by some glowing reviews. I remember playing it to a very good friend of mine (who had just moved into his new house) and commenting that I liked it because it was just a great pop record; uncomplicated but full of melody, warmth and texture.
At the time, critics made comparisons to Nick Drake and Badly Drawn Boy. On one level ‘Draw’ is a singer/songwriter’s album and it’s easy to see why it was (lazily) labelled ‘folk rock’ and corralled alongside David Gray, Beth Orton et al. But such categorisation affords the album a great disservice, denying it the panorama and the audience with which it should be heard.
‘Draw’ is not an acoustic-laden missive from bed-sit land. It is the sound of an artist taking his clutch of personal and well-crafted songs and offering them to us on as wide a pop canvass as possible.
And on that basis ‘Draw’ is an overwhelming success.
Just to throw you off track, ‘Draw’ is book-ended by two acoustic tracks, but in terms of style and content they are poles (and 10 tracks) apart. Where ‘Four Minute Rebellion’ (too blue for the US version of the album!) is the busker folk opener, ‘A World Apart’ is a soulful gospel closer.
For three of its five minutes ‘Let Your Shoulder Fall’ plays as a pop/soul love song but it finishes to an interesting and partly experimental coda, with electronica and feedback vying for your attention.
It was at this point that I first sat up and really took notice.
‘You’re Always Going Too Soon’ is like Deacon Blue in terms of arrangement, but without the bombast, and besides, Matthew’s voice is too soulful to let the song enter mawkish MOR territory.
It’s a track that has taken on a more poignant and much sadder meaning, as it recounts Matthew’s memories of a childhood friend, taken prematurely by death.
For me, lyrically, it is up there with Lennon’s ‘In My Life’: ‘It's been a long time since we hung around together in the street / And I miss those days, when the world would wait for us / With our crowd of friends, we'd sit along the pavement near your house / 'Till the sun came down and we brought the stars out’.
I particularly love how the line, ‘when the world would wait for us’ captures the timeless quality of childhood.
‘Only Meant To Say’ is a master-class in simple but effective song-writing, and the first glimpse of Matthew’s skill in taking pop’s traditional verse/chorus/verse structure and giving it a real breath of life.
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‘Meteorology’ is a personal favourite. A folk ballad, its soaring string arrangement beautifully counterpoints Matthew’s wonderfully soulful, mournful and lilting vocal delivery.
‘Call My Name Out’ is a fat stomp of a track. Great beat, West Coast guitar licks and harmonies accompany a simple declaration of love: ‘I wanna be in your life, you turn me on / With your crooked smile / Whenever I look at you, I feel as though / It's all coming right.’ You could see The Thrills performing this one.
‘Molasses’ is an instrumental and another experimental track. Like ‘Let Your Shoulder Fall’, it signposts Matthew as a musician looking to use the studio as an integral part of his music, not simply as a place to lay down tracks.
‘Please Don’t Send Me Away’ is another master-class with an incredibly strong verse/chorus/verse structure. It’s also one of those songs that soars as it progresses to a wonderful coda lyric that once again resonates in the light of Matthew’s passing: ‘Look up and see the angels / The gates have opened up for you / I hope your mind is peaceful / And love is everything you do’.
‘Remember This Feeling’ is built around a simple melody line that builds and builds but never threatens to become overblown, Matthew constantly reigning the song in as necessary.
Next up is song-writing master-class #3, ‘Become Yourself’ and its ‘carpe deum’ mantra: ‘Become yourself my boy, / You know you're halfway there / It's not so easy living with your soul laid bare / But you will find out / That a little courage pays off / Become yourself my boy and then you get somewhere’.
Penultimate track ‘The Clearing’ is another one of those stomping tracks that comes on like Mungo Jerry’s ‘In The Summertime’. A great big grin of a song.
What strikes me now, as it did then, is the level of ambition and confidence that Matthew displays. At times, it is easy to forget that this is his first album.
‘Draw’ is an assured debut, full of promise and it contains at least 4 top drawer songs that any established songwriter would be more than happy to put their name to.
Overwhelmingly, Matthew’s talent lay in his ability to write and arrange simple but meaningful songs that quickly registered in the brain; the type of songs that you realise you’ve been singing to yourself long after the album has finished.
Who knows what paths Matthew would have taken with his music, but his choices of direction, based on ‘Draw’, could have been many, and for us, all would probably have been worth taking with him.
Last month the album ‘..too soon’ was released. It is a collection of demos, work in progress and remixes of singles. It can be purchased online via the official Matthew Jay web-site:
www.crookedsmile.com
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