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Jan 2006 - Alan Gilmour
What is an Aussie lad from Parramatta doing living in a small village in Austria? Well, playing music and having a good time, mostly!
There's probably a joke going around somewhere that “Kangaroo” Matt Burke misread his flight details and mistakenly ended up in Austria, rather than back in Australia. But no, as it turns out, Matt actually went to Austria as a tourist, and stayed for love: love firstly for his Austrian-born wife Silvia, and love secondly for the mountains and the scenery of his adopted homeland.
In Austria, Matt has built up a musical career over the past ten years, playing the “après-ski” circuit from his home base in Lofer, at the foot of the Austrian Alps. He has also returned to Australia from time to time to perform on the Sydney pub circuit.
In August this year, Matt released his first album, “truth”, a collection of very personal self-penned songs, reflecting on life and love, search and discovery, truth and meaning, recovery and renewal, and most importantly about moving on to find a new home and a new love in a place that he’d never been before.
The album combines Matt’s vocal and acoustic guitar work with the backing of a bunch of savvy musicians from around Salzburg, where the CD was recorded. The album benefits from the excellent work of these backing musicians plus the good overall quality of production.
Particular mention should go to electric guitarist Robert Schonleifner for his impressive lead guitar work, cellists Anna Martin-Scrase and Ulrike Gossel for their soulful performances on the three cello-backed tracks, keyboardist Ali Dominik for his work on “Find A Way”, and drummer Sebastian Lanser for his percussion work in general. And of course, Matt also accounts for himself well on acoustic guitar and vocals.
The songs themselves are uniformly strong and tuneful, and the performance styles range from acoustic guitar backing on “Cooma Town”, “Find A Way”, “Softly Spoken”, “Lofer I Love You” and “I Want You”, to duos with cellist Anna Martin-Scrase and Ulrike Gossel on “I Have Overcome”, “Awareness Cycle” and “The Nature Of Love”, to full rock band backing on “You Cannot See”, “Crossroads” and “My Obsession”.
Despite the different performance styles, the songs all maintain the album’s common lyric theme relating to Matt’s personal journey, in both a physical and an emotional sense.
There is unfortunately not enough space to review all of the tracks individually, but I’d like to mention two of my favourite tracks, “Cooma Town” and “Lofer I Love You”. These are two of the softer acoustic songs, about two towns on opposite sides of the world, but joined by a common theme in Matt’s life.
The smooth and tuneful “Cooma Town”, which opens the album, is a song about finding renewal and personal peace in a quiet rural town in Australia, and then moving on. The destination becomes apparent in the sentimental “Lofer I Love You”, a song about the town in Austria where Matt eventually settled and married. The acoustic style works well with both tracks, complementing both the music and the lyrics.
Overall, Matt has done a solid job on this, his first release. The standard of songwriting and performance among the songs is uniformly strong, with many highs and very few lows. There are times when the album reaches the heights necessary for commercial success, but unfortunately in my view, is held back by the lack of a "killer" track that would launch the album to the next level all on its own. But wouldn’t we all like one of those.
Well done, Matt, we look forward to hearing more from you in the future. In the meantime, just keep working on more of your excellent songs, and especially that killer track………..
The album can be obtained from Matt at www.kangaroomatt.com.
Alan Gilmour
Australian Songwriters Association Inc.
December 2005
Track Listing:
Cooma Town
Find A Way
You Cannot See
Softly Spoken
Crossroads
Lofer I Love You
I Have Overcome
I Want You
My Obsession
Awareness Cycle
The Nature Of Love
All songs written by Matt Burke
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