MP3 Tall Grass Captains of Greater Chicago - She Moved Through

Classic songcraft a la Elliott Smith, intense and poignant like Neutral Milk Hotel, uplifting as the Flaming Lips, rocking like Built to Spill, and sung with the conviction of Elvis Costello

9 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Psychedelic, POP: Beatles-pop



Details:
Songwriter Mark Mattson did not originally set out to make an elegy to family and friends lost in recent years, but early on realized this was the direction in which the work with the Tall Grass Captains was leading. "The songs were all coming out with this turbulent, restless, and sometimes menacing undercurrent. On top I was piling layers of pretty melodies with intersnaking counterpoints. I realized this was how I was trying to impose some order onto these shattering, unexpected experiences. Initially I resisted that notion--mostly because it seemed almost too obvious! But once I faced it, and gave into it, the whole shape and reason for the record--for even why I was doing music--materialized. And it just took over." The result, She Moved Through, is fearless, otherworldly, and ambitious in way that feels both humorous and grave.

Mattson's songs on She Moved Through reflect the experiences of an urban parochial childhood in his native Chicago, as well as evoke the rural Midwestern expanses of his current home in Dekalb, Illinois, where he also plays guitar and producer for indie up-and-comers Grenadier. A veteran of the Chicago rock scene as the leader of the Klugmaknotts and Luminous, Mattson's work has consistently galvanized audiences since the 90s, winning praise from critics for his unique songwriting talent. He is back with the guitars (and most everything else) on She Moved Through, while Craig Swafford, Mattson's longtime collaborator, once again provides drums, percussion, and devil's advocate services. Together with Grenadier's enfant terrible, Jeremy Heroldt, they form the core of the Ubique collective, with other friends stopping by to lend their talents and beer to the enterprise.

She Moved Through is one of those records with one foot in this world and one in the next-some half-remembered dream that suddenly startles us by its familiarity. It describes a world where dented doors of dreary city streets open into great galactic vistas, where saints compete for the attention of princesses while satellites spy from above, and dragonflies hunt queens with the power to never let us die. "For this record I was thinking of song-cycle-type records like the Zombies' Oddysey and Oracle with its majestic, melancholy pop. Also Tyrannosaurus Rex, before they became T-Rex--particularly the Unicorn album. I admire artists like the Circulatory System, Neutral Milk Hotel, and the Flaming Lips, who do such an ingenious job of taking that baroque approach to rock music while still creating work that's timeless, hard-driving, valiant and moving." The album title itself nods to a haunting Irish ballad "She Moved Through the Fair." Throughout there is a tunefulness that suggests despite his hard rock background, Mattson never got over the AM pop radio of his early 70s childhood, where the likes of Sweet, Paul Simon, and the Miracles all once rubbed shoulders. This lends an air of fun and hope to the sometimes difficult, tragic subject matter.

"I couldn't continue to write songs and pretend that these individual losses of family and friends, all young women, didn't affect me to the core," Mattson explains. "But I didn't want to make an album that just made people feel sad. I wanted to take that experience of loss and despair and unfairness, and make something about the mystery of it all, about the beauty of being alive."