Music is always hard to describe. When people try to profile a beat, they often invent the most far-off comparisons. But not Matzak: he is one of the few artists who always find the appropriate metaphor. The smart Frenchman and full-time professional pharmacist knows best about the alchemy of an eclectic combination, and the well-balanced mix of the necessary ingredients.
His openhearted and inviting debut album “Life Beginnings” released on Boxer Recordings was a kind of ‘omnium gatherum’ he skilfully combined with a most appealing result. And in his new release “Bring Me The Moon”, Matzak applies a far more broader spectrum: he makes the sounds literally breathe, and gives each track its very own, individual pace with alternating straight and broken beats, smooth, delicious melodies and perfect bass lines. In other words: marvellous swinging sounds for your body and mind.
The opener of the album “On The Sofa” starts with a fitness-clubbish bass. Sometimes it pretends to be the illegitimate grandson of the Beasty Boys, sometimes to be Moloko’s secret twin-sister. And without feeling guilty, Matzak even turns the radio on in order to entertain the first guests, and Californian singer Tori adds a few superbly placed vocal lines, and ready is the finest melange.
But instead of getting stuck and well-fed at the foyer, “Unpredictable Sunday” and “Disco Mobster” start boarding the main floor. Rolling strings and a fresh monster bass are the first signs of a deep euphoria (both tracks would normally represent the start – and often at the same time the end – of a career).
So, now it would be the right time for moving up a gear, or at least for going for some tears. Matzak however slows down, and starts all over again in a completely different way. “In the Jazz Garden” with its virtuoso piano comes along in a rather innocent way at first, and pretends to be a downbeat track. But the supposedly stopgaps quickly turns out to be a fully elaborated track that leaves the beaten tracks aside.
Matzak enriches the romantically rainy „Argos“, and the precisely funky title track „Bring Me The Moon“ with so many vitamins that in the end, the listener is convinced that he has discovered a long-lost DJ-Shadow song. But apart from the nicely pastel coloured atmospheres, Matzak never forgets the floor: with „Stockholm 1973 Rework“, a vivid vocal song, or „Magneto“, a funky-stumbling track, he presents two stunning draft versions of what might become the best club tunes ever.
You sometimes won’t believe your ears when you listen to this wealth of ideas.
But why this vivid discussion does not end up in a private conversation, and
how the flow manages to turn this album into a fantastic whole will always remain the pharmacist’s little secret. It has to run in your blood to play yourself into the people’s hearts and legs, you cannot learn it. This music is hard to describe, you must listen to it. And we are very grateful for that.