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Mattew J. Rolin's self-titled debut album on Worried Songs (the album title is a full-sleeve painting of a lilac wooden three story house. In the painting, there is part of a dark tree in the foreground; in the foreground is a dramatic cloudy sky, with the sun breaking through above the roof of the house).
Colour photograph by John R of Matthew J. Rolin performing live. Rolin wears a brown cardigan, maroon beanie hat and checked shirt. The clothes all appear to be clean. Shoulder-length hair surrounds Rolin's face, which also sports a trimmed beard and brown-rimmed glasses. A button on the cardigan catches the light. Rolin's eyes appear to be closed, or are looking down at the guitar he holds. The head of the 12-string guitar is out of focus.

Matthew J. Rolin - Matthew J. Rolin

WORRIED SONGS

Matthew J Rolin's self-titled debut album, originally released on the inimitable Feeding Tube records in 2019 and sold out very quickly, showcases Rolin as one of the most creative, versatile and powerful proponents honing their craft in the canon of the American Primitive (and beyond) today. This pressing, on the new imprint Worried Songs, makes the album available for the first time in Europe and the UK. 

With his musical beginnings in series of punk, noise and psychedelic projects and bands in and out of Illinois and Ohio (including collaborations with Wolf Eyes, and his improv duo with Jen Powers), that misspent youth can still be heard in these nine achingly beautiful compositions of solo concert steel string guitar. In the world of American Primitive Guitar, Rolin's is true outsider music - it is ragged and rustic, tired and angry, beautiful and hopeful. 

"The rainy spirit and homespun quality of Rolin's music separates him from more academic fingerstyle contemporaries... Unconcerned with virtuosic technique or reincarnating the ghosts of past guitar heroes, Rolin’s overcast instrumentals convey the reality of his own encounters with folk blues" - Fred Thomas, Pitchfork 

 

TRACKLIST: 
  1. One Day I Will Be Free 
  2. Valley of the Morning 
  3. Siren 
  4. Cold Rooms 
  5. For Henry 
  6. Rivets 
  7. Neverendingness 
  8. Two Fourteen 
  9. Blue Columbus Moon 

 

 Cover art by American folk-artist Albert Gray 

 

browse collections: 
American Primitive Guitar collection 
Americana collection 

 

also on Worried Songs: 
Eli Winter - The Time To Come   LP 
Joseph Allred - The True Light   LP 
Jerry David DeCicca - The Unlikely Optimist And His Domestic Adventures   LP 
Josh Kimbrough - Slither, Soar & Disappear   LP 

 

view all new releases... 

 

 

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