Mathew Herbert One One (Accidental)
4/5
By: Liane Escorza
Mathew Herbert’s new project is truly personal – he’s releasing a trilogy under his own label, starting with One One and following with One Club and One Pig. A musician (both as Bodily Functions and leader of the Matthew Herbert Band) and a producer, this particular piece of work is intimate, straightforward and heartfelt, a personal diary of self-awareness, creativity and detached self-analysis. But for all its egocentric characteristics, One One provides plenty of me-to-you revelations and surprises, which shouldn’t be taken lightly.
One One dissects humanity in the form of ‘I’. The appreciation for humankind and peoples’ stories through himself as a medium is evident in Herbert’s lyrics, scarce but groundbreaking and defining; sometimes political, sometimes poetic, sometimes whispered secrets - “hot like a house on fire”, “And with the rising of the seas/ Mouths will be open/ And with the drying of the fields/ Everything will be gone”. Each song is cleverly named as a city and represents a mood, a way of living. ‘Berlin’ is an introspective and thoughtful number; ‘Dublin’ is playful and gentle; ‘Palm Springs’ is warm in bright bubbling experimentation and choirs; and ‘Valencia’ is a breeze of summer fairies and nostalgic vastness.
Matthew Herbert could have offered a work of self-indulgence, difficult to digest, but in turn he is providing a channel for communication, exchange and generous interaction. One One is not a record made by one for one, but by one to one.
Artists in this article: Matthew Herbert
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