matt jones:
"WALTZING WITH LADY DAWN"
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For most of "Lady Dawn," Matt Jones runs lit chromatic matches along bright tissue paper. When the chorus finally arrives, it kind of tumbles out of the song, sounding deliberate but surprising at the same time, an inevitable outburst that retreats behind the "hasty bed-downs, and boozed-up letdowns, and all-night heart sounds" that precede her arrival. Jones has been compared to Sufjan Stevens, which I don't think is fair to either. Jones has a different game altogether, and seems keener on writing out of his state than leaving his state and revisiting it with all that deep Midwestern-transplant regret. Not that he's is any more "Michigan" than Stevens--nobody's versatile enough to represent a state whose identity extends from the Keweenaw Peninsula to Wayne County. But enough comparisons. Jones deserves his own space, and seems to know it: here, he draws its shape every time he repeats the opening riff.
-Peter