What's in a name? Matthew Sweet. Working with him in the studio was constant cornpone, revelation and jubilation. He makes things bright in a dark alley, and throws shade on the sunny side of the street. Living Things is a benchmark collection of lyrics and music from a song craftsman of permanent value. He has edge all over his angular vision and approach. I should know. I arranged for the Mothers and Brian Wilson. I know Randy Newman personally. Matthew is better- looking, and doesn't show Newman's slouch toward old age. I was on my hands and knees on the bass pedals of a Hammond B-3. I haven't done that since “Good Vibrations.” Matthew is just terrific.
~ Van Dyke Parks
Superdeformed and RCAM Records are proud to announce the semi-simultaneous release of two Matthew Sweet CDs: Living Things, will be released worldwide on September 7, and Kimi Ga Suki, which was released last year in Japan only, will hit the American streets on October 19.
In 2002, Matthew Sweet turned over a new leaf with some old friends on Kimi Ga Suki, which he wrote specifically for his fans in Japan and recorded in his home studio using the same core group of musicians who’d played on his 1991 classic Girlfriend. A few months afterward, a lush blossom sprouted out of that new leaf with the creation of Living Things. An organic work in every sense, from the way it was conceived and recorded to its subject matter, Living Things is the artist’s most intimate and unconventional record since 1993’s Altered Beast. If that album was a contemplation of mortality, Living Things is a celebration of life in its most unfettered state.
Like the material for the preceding album, Living Things was written quickly; in fact, the ideas came to Sweet in what he describes as “a spontaneous explosion” of inspiration one evening on a ranch in Santa Ynez, California, where he was holed up with Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins working up the material for their harmony-based group the Thorns. With the shapes of the newly formed songs germinating in his head, Matthew got up before anyone else the next few mornings, took a walk outside and sat under a tree, where he wrote the lyrics, surrounded by nature in all its midsummer glory. In three days, he had all the songs completed.
Sweet returned to Los Angeles eager to get the songs recorded while they were fresh. As with Kimi, there would be no demos because demoing had become an unnecessary step in his creative process. The album wasn’t constructed as much as it simply grew, starting with its skeleton. Matthew had drummer Ric Menck come over, and together they quickly laid down the spines of the tracks, with Matthew playing acoustic guitar and singing over Menck’s grooves. These guide vocals - which he sang for the very first time - are the vocals you’ll hear on the album, because Matthew realized he couldn’t match their spontaneity. Next, he added bass, the only electric instrument that would appear on all 11 tracks.
Here’s where things got interesting. String wizard and Sweet regular Greg Leisz showed up to provide the next layer of instrumentation with his arsenal of axes, including acoustic slide guitar, mandolin, mandola and electric mando-guitar. Joining him was a special guest: the idiosyncratically brilliant musician/composer/arranger and Smile co-author Van Dyke Parks, who’d gotten to know Matthew through mutual friend Brian Wilson. Parks played piano, organ, harpsichord, marxophone and accordion in his inimitable style all over the record. “Van Dyke really got the psychedelic nature of how I wanted it to be,” Matthew says.
Then Tony Marsico and Pete Phillips added stand-up bass and acoustic guitar, respectively, Van Dyke’s friend Doug Lacy put steel drums on one track and Roger Handy added harmonica to another. Sweet topped it all off with his signature touch, singing and stacking the intricate vocal harmonies - and Living Things was alive and kicking.
The album’s theme is nature, and the performances are appropriately free-flowing. “I left everything, so the ends go on forever, there’s jamming and it’s all kind of a tapestry of stuff,” Sweet explains. “One of the things I experienced on Living Things - and I think that now I really benefit from this knowledge - is that people do the great things right away when they play. Even if you think at the time that they haven’t started playing it well yet, they’ve already played the best stuff they’re gonna play. I’ve learned to record right from the beginning; the early takes may be nutty and there may be mistakes, but they’re just always better - more spontaneous and natural and anything can happen. It’s like records used to feel. There’s something about raw.”
It’s precisely this anything-can-happen vibe that makes Living Things such a vibrant listening experience. Among the numerous high points are the exotic opener “Big Cats of Shambala,” inspired by a visit to the Shambala Preserve, a haven for lions, tigers and other wild felines founded by actress turned animal activist Tippi Hedren; “You’re Not Sorry” and the fittingly titled “In My Tree,” which are among his most beautiful ballads; the whimsical “Cats Vs. Dogs,” which is really about the people who love each type of animal; and the streamlined rocker “Dandelion,” which sports the most nakedly visceral groove Sweet and Menck have ever churned out.
Matthew kept the album under wraps while the Thorns project ran its course, but the enthusiastic response to Kimi Ga Suki in Japan has made the Japanese release of Living Things, along with an accompanying tour, a no-brainer, as Sweet once again honors his fans across the Pacific - who continue to hold a special place in his heart - by giving them his album before it appears anywhere else.
The two albums will come out back to back in the U.S. in September and October on Superdeformed/ RCAM Records, following glowing reviews of the import in The New Yorker, which stated that Kimi contained “more of the indelibly gorgeous, lovelorn songs that sent his star into ascendance a dozen years ago with his album Girlfriend”; The Boston Phoenix, which raved that the record “finds Sweet in the throes of an elevated mood swing, churning out whip-smart power pop brimming with spot-on vocal harmonies and barbed guitar hooks”; and All Music Guide, which found it to be “an excellent modern guitar pop album, filled with great hooks and harmonies and irresistible ringing six-strings.” If they loved Kimi, just wait till they hear Living Things. It marks a bold new step in Matthew Sweet’s evolution as an artist who matters.