Stick a pin in the map halfway between Nick Drake and Bob Dylan and you’ll find Kristian Matsson, the ecletic Swedish folksinger also known as The Tallest Man On Earth
It is impossible to discuss Kristian Matsson, known by the moniker The Tallest Man On Earth , without conjuring up an image of Bob Dylan. Yes, his vocals are raspy and imperfect, his style of fast guitar picking is reminiscent of a young Robert Zimmerman, but on There’s No Leaving Now , the Swede proves he is no tribute act. ‘To Just Grow Away’ is a sweet, melodic number that sets a tone that the rest of the tracks rarely verge too far away from. ‘Revelation Blues’ explores relationships that ended too soon (“sometimes it’s just roses dying [...]
![[album review] The Tallest Man on Earth // There’s No Leaving Now](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/4339169_lg.jpg)
On the spectrum of folk music, your extremes exist in the form of social commentary on one end, such as that of Bob Dylan, and the existential, ethereal dreamscapes of artists such as Sam Beam on the other end. Somewhere in the middle of that spectrum falls Kristian Matsson, the Swedish folk artist who is better known as The Tallest Man on Earth. With the release of his third LP, There's No Leaving Now , Matsson has begun to earn the admiration of the music world beyond the bloggers, having been highlighted by mainstream outlets such as NPR . [...]
There was a concerted effort to not use Bob Dylan and Kristian Matsson, a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth , in the same sentence when Matsson broke out with his 2010 album The Wild Hunt . The comparisons, while vocally and musically obvious, proved (and still do prove) too facile and tenuous to totally work. However one thing that is worth noting is the juxtaposition of Dylan's and Matsson's album output early in their careers. Dylan dropped albums like Catholic Twins early in his career, moving swiftly from trad-folk protest songs to rebellious garage blues to introspective [...]
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars It seems like Kristian Mattson is on a roll, musically speaking. His music has progressed through his first two albums, and he continues his own tradition with his latest release as The Tallest Man on Earth , There's No Leaving Now . At this point in his career, his voice and musical stylings have become familiar, making the work on this album more personal. Upon listening to the first track, "To Just Grow Away," I noticed that [...]
On Further Review by Cara Giaimo THE BEST NEW MUSIC OF 2012 - Kristian Matsson has chosen the perfect stage name. Hear “the tallest man on earth” and what do you think of? Maybe mythic giants stepping over mountains, or early 20th century sideshow performers, or scrawny boys hopefully draining their milk glasses every morning. Listen to The Tallest Man On Earth and [...]
Artist : The Tallest Man On Earth Title : There's No Leaving Now Label : Dead Oceans Release date: June 11th BUY IT A couple of weeks ago now GFPs editor Tom Johnson sent me a text message that simply said; “Sitting on my balcony in the sun with a cup of tea and Tallest Man On [...]
There's No Leaving Now showcases the familiar folk stylings of Kristian Matsson – trussing bittersweet tales of places and faces articulated in the warm, husky tones of the modern-day Dylan.
Since the release of the first Tallest Man On Earth LP in 2006, Kristian Matsson has carved out quite the niche within the indie music world. Indisputably, he’s been boxed in as “indie’s Bob Dylan.” The fault for this lies with Matsson, as even 2010’s Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird EP employs more than its fair share of Dylanisms. While it made for some fascinating and enjoyable music, eventually Matsson – like so many Dylan spawned artists – would either have to develop his sound further or risk fading into irrelevance. [...]
There’s No Leaving Now , Kristian Matsson’s third album as The Tallest Man on Earth, finds him warming the production by another notch. If he keeps this up he’ll be reaching for the embellished accompaniment of Blood on the Tracks sooner than we thought. OK, I struggle to get past the Dylan comparisons, and it’s not just because of Matsson’s nasal-heavy tones. The acoustic guitar is either strummed with a fervent passion or adeptly picked, both styles Dylan also worked with. The songs find him spewing words and changing pace, yelps and whines inclusive - they [...]
The world isn’t what you’d call short of folky man-with-guitar-(and-beard)-si nger-songwriters, is it? In fact the whole scene feels pretty saturated right now, and it’s easy to be put off even giving someone who falls under that category a listen, simply due to the understandable fear that you’ll have heard it all before. Since his first album in 2006 however, through two EPs and another album since, The Tallest Man On Earth , a.k.a. Kristian Matsson has continually demonstrated the worth of overcoming this fear. Whether it’s his harsh, coarse [...]
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars Consisting of three ladies each established in their own field of the music industry, Seeker Lover Keeper fundamentally sounds like a good idea. Sarah Blasko, Holly Throsby and Sally Seltmann are currently some of the biggest Australian songwriters, previously writing songs for artists like Fiest , and touring with Lykke Li , The Tallest Man on Earth , Broken Social Scene and more. However, it takes more than apt songwriting and [...]
On May 27, 1963 Bob Dylan released his second studio LP, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan , to much critical acclaim. Opening track “Blowin’ In The Wind” would go on to become the hippie national anthem and the most influential protest song ever written. Freewheelin’ spawned four other singles, and was eventually chosen as one of fifty albums to be added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan Since [...]
So, I thought I'd put together a little list of my favorite albums of the year. I never feel quite right about where I cut off the list, so to cope with my feelings, this year I've made an honorable mention consisting of... Connect the Dots by Stacy Clark was an incredibly fun singer/songwriter album that crept up on my play counts. The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire had some standout tracks, but I couldn't completely connect to the alt rock ensemble's overdone anthem. Teen Dream by Beach House was at [...]
So 2010 is drawing to a close and the obligatory end-of-year lists are ten-a-penny. So what makes ours so special? Well...er...nothing really, but inspired by the notion that 'if you can’t beat em, join em’ we put our heads together to come up with our favourite albums of the year. Once the votes were in we put the results through the most powerful computer known to man...i.e. TJ chucked out the ones he didn’t like, and after the rest of us threw our toys out of the pram we eventually all made up over a mince pie and a bottle of [...]
For it being the season of reissues and box sets, there hasn't that many to talk about (next week sees the big Bruce Springsteen The Promise ), but at least we can crow about the best EP of the year coming out (from The Tallest Man on Earth). Other new releases of note include Bad Books, Cee-Lo Green, Kid Cudi, The Concretes, Shipping News, a Syd Barrett compilation and a deluxe reissue of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' best Damn the Torpedoes . Playlist: New Releases 11.09.10 [...]
Photograph by Johan Stolpe Each year there is an artist that softly and gently creeps their way into my world in the middle of a season filled with hard-banging electro, power guitar riffs and boom bap drums, offering a little taste of what my Fall and Winter will sound like. In 2007 it was Bon Iver’s unorthodox melodies and haunting vocals; in 2008 it was the poetry of Kings of Convenience; in 2009 it was the intimacy of the debut album from The xx; and in 2010 it has been Kristian Matsson’s project The Tallest Man on Earth. From the moment [...]
The Tallest Man on Earth writes modest, deeply inspired folk songs with penetrating melodies and a howl that harks back to Dylan while simultaneously carving out its own distinct gravelly sweetness. This we know by now. He did it in 2008 with his debut, Shallow Grave , and just this year he wowed us again with his frenetic fingerpicked pop-folk balladry on the on-par The Wild Hunt . Standing just over five feet tall, he may not live up to his name physically, but his tales are tall gestures of a folksinger wholly invested in his [...]
Photograph by Chris La Putt The Wild Hunt emotes like a restless child – a tacit resolution paints Kristian Matsson in a positive light – unruly, expressive, and urgent. Following-up his debut Shallow Grave and several months of touring with Bon Iver, Matsson delights with raspy vocals and an elegant guitar. The Wild Hunt strays from its predecessor with respect to instrumentation as Matsson explores the piano and banjo in conjunction to familiar finger-plucked harmonies on guitar. Matsson’s Dylan-esque vocals provide a striking contrast to the humble guitar and [...]
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