Mat Gibson

A whole five years after the release of his critically acclaimed debut Home Movie, and fresh from two years living in Quebec, Canada, resurgent British singer/songwriter Mat Gibson is releasing a mini-album entitled Forest Fire on recently established UK-based Americana label Clubhouse Records on September 5th.

 Forest Fire opens with some deceptively twee acoustic guitar picking before the jarring intro 'some bad, bad things, lord only knows we've done, put cats in bags and wrestled with bears, my son' which sets the tone from the outset. In 'Lord Only Knows', the opening track to 'Forest Fire', Gibson lays it out pure and simple… the world is screwed and there's nothing we can do about it, '…for all that we've fought, can't change a damn thing.' Many a realist has claimed that a song can't change the world, and neither it seems can the Obamas of this world. But Gibson seems to play on that, embracing powerlessness in an effort to perhaps question it.

 But beneath the weight of his words, Gibson has crafted a work of surprising depth and focus for 7 tracks. Gibson ditches the Ryan Adams-esque twang and drawl of his debut for long, drawn-out reverb heavy phrasing of the Jim James variety. In the aching, post-apocalyptic love song 'The Last Songbird', Gibson harnesses the ghost of Springsteen's Nebraska whilst the ironic and sadistic 'Jonah' (about being trapped inside a whale) would strike a chord with early Radiohead fans. Best still however is the title track which ties the album's themes of displacement and self-questioning together in an emphatic string-laden crescendo of a chorus. 'I climb above the flames' Gibson bellows, stretching his vocal range as Joe Bennett's (Dreaming Spires, Danny & The Champions of The World) stirring string arrangement takes off.

 'Forest Fire' was inspired by Gibson's final day in Quebec before returning home to the UK when the city was engulfed in smoke from raging forest fires north of the city. Although Gibson admits selfishness in reading into such events from a personal perspective, the timing of the event struck a chord nonetheless, particularly as his future in the place he'd fallen in love with for its wild nature and beauty was literally up in flames, as echoed in the lyric, 'If it was nature's way, well then its time I paid, and the tracks that I made are forever erased, forest fires ablaze, not a single trace remains'.

 Unconsciously absorbing its expansiveness, north-eastern Canada has had a massive impact on 'Forest Fire'. The listener  is alerted to a larger space - somewhere spanning its forests, shores and the expanse of the North Atlantic. The limitations of being alone at Truck Studio with producer Rowland Prytherch (Danny & The Champions of the World, The Epstein) has helped Mat focus on doing only as much as the song requires in terms of instrumentation. Prytherch applies his ink sparingly with only the slightest of overdubs (done mostly by Mat himself) around a core live vocal and guitar take. Percussion is often just a floor tom and a tambourine whilst flashes of piano, harmonica, glockenspiel and slide guitar accent the doubled or harmonised vocals and flat-picked guitar where necessary.

 The product is an Americana album that has come out of nowhere from a scene more in tune with pedal-steel drenched country-rock, an album that calls the listeners attention to issues that loom so large perhaps we sweep them under the carpet in denial. In the haunting 'Icebergs', Gibson paints images of planes with 'nowhere left to land', taunting the listeners with the provocative chorus line 'I bet you don't care at all'. .

 Mat Gibson announced his return to the UK in January this year with a solo performance at EquiTruck at the 02 Academy with Treetop Flyers and Fixers to name a few. Mat is performing at Truck Festival with band on Sunday July 24th, 2011.

 'Forest Fire' is out on September 5th on Clubhouse Records including the single 'Yonder Burning Trees' which is available for free download from matgibson.co.uk.

 For more details of tour dates visit matgibson.co.uk/clubhouserecords.co.uk or contact info@matgibson.co.uk or info@clubhouserecords.co.uk

 Forest Fire released 5^th September on Clubhouse Records

 "...an artist who is meant for great things" - Oxford Music Blog

 One of "Britain's brightest exponents of Americana" - Mercury Prize Recommends

 "... like a youthful Neil Young..." - Americana UK (8/10)

 www.matgibson.co.uk