Matt Andersen has a new album coming; take a look at the first lyric video
Award-winning Canadian soul-bluesman Matt Andersen has announced the forthcoming release of Halfway Home by Morning, which will be available via True North Records on Mar. 22.
Unbridled joy springs eternal from Halfway Home by Morning, Matt’s tenth full-length release. The album was recorded live off the floor in Nashville, TN and deftly captures the New Brunswick-native’s signature and internationally celebrated sound: sweat-soaked soul meets incendiary rhythm and blues, with full doses of heartsick folk and Americana grit mixed in for good measure.
Much like the legends who graced the space before them — Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, and Jerry Lee Lewis, to name a few — Matt and his band left everything they had on the floor of Southern Ground studio over the course of recording the album’s 13 tracks.
The recording space soon came to feel like home, he said. The kitchen fulfilled its all-important role as a de-facto “war room” for musicians who joined in on the release, like Steve Dawson, Jay Bellerose, Chris Gestrin, Amy Helm, The McCrary Sisters (Ann, Regina, and Alfreda), Jim Hoke, Charles Rose, and Steve Hermann. And after the day’s work was done, Matt and bassist Mike Farrington routinely found themselves kicking back, listening to the horn sections, and reminiscing about the players they’d shared stages with before.
That home-like feel fed the belly and fueled the fire within Halfway Home by Morning; the release inspires soulful rejuvenation, looking outward at the anxious state of the world and offering a helping hand while, at the same time, searching inward to clarify what really matters.
The result? A record teeming with such warmth and verve, listeners can’t help but keep comrades close and feelin’ right.
“There really is nothing like listening back in the studio, and everybody has the same smile on their face over what we’re hearing,” Matt said. “You can’t fake the vibe of musicians playing together, responding to the choices others are making in that moment.”
Fakery has never been a factor for Matt Andersen. Nearly two decades into his storied career now, his room-shaking, heart-quaking voice has won him countless awards, including two European Blues Awards and seven Maple Blues Awards, an International Blues Challenge, and a nomination for a Canadian Independent Music Association Award, not to mention a JUNO nod. His lengthy tenure as Canada’s resident bluesman speaks for itself.
2016’s Honest Man debuted in the top five on Soundscan for albums in Canada, following Adele, Justin Bieber, Macklemore & Lewis, and The 1975, and its supporting tour sold more than 25,000 tickets nationwide.
Halfway Home by Morning is the sound of an artist doing what he was born to do: laying his soul bare using the music that can’t help but run through him, and doing it with more jubilation than he ever has before.
See Matt Anderson live at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
