Boduf Songs - Whisper of a lonely demon
interview by
Andrea Vascellari
I still haven't managed to fully get a handle on Mat Sweet as a figure. Starting out as just another depressed folksinger hopelessly tied to lo-fi aesthetics, he's managed to mold his music into a balanced crossover between art-folk and slowcore. His cryptic lyrics, stuffed with alchemical references and gothic nightmares, certainly don't make it any easier to pin him down. After meeting him in person during his Italian tour last year (incidentally, I'd strongly recommend catching one of his shows: it's dark, hypnotic, and carries an inexplicable air of sacredness), I exchanged a few emails with him: the result is what you're about to read.
What are your plans for the future? Will there be a follow-up to "This Alone Above All Else In Spite Of Everything“?
There will be. I've already recorded it and sometime in 2012 it'll see the light of day. Anyone interested in my news can write to me and I'll add them to my newsletter.
Your first works are essentially acoustic slow-folk pieces. "How Shadows Chase The Balance" and "This Alone Above All Else In Spite Of Everything" are more complex and sophisticated instead; why did you decide to enrich your music?
When I started playing this kind of music, I wanted listeners to feel like they were hearing a single person in a room... because deep down, that's exactly what my music was. After the first few albums I started worrying less about all that, and I just played what I felt without worrying about how people would perceive it. I don't care if people think Boduf Songs is a band rather than a single person. Obviously, that opened up a whole world of different possibilities for me in terms of sound and experimentation.
What do you consider to be your best song and your best album?
Jeez! I really think that's a decision for someone else to make! Personally, I'd never release something new if I didn't think it was better than what I'd done before.
What are your influences? Is there any author you'd particularly recommend?
I recently saw a truly astonishing film called "We Need to Talk About Kevin": extremely dark and yet beautiful, at times ridiculous without being over the top - it might sound like a contradiction, but it isn't. I'm lucky to do the job I do, since I get to listen to various audiobooks through headphones during the day. Lately I've really enjoyed "Confessions of a Conjuror" by Derren Brown and "God Is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens.
Ah, so besides being a musician, painter and videomaker (I strongly recommend taking a look at his videos and paintings, ed.)do you also have some kind of "normal" job?
Oh yes, of course! I'd love to make enough money from these things, but I hardly earn anything from them. I work in a university bookstore. I love being surrounded by books, and it lets me pay (almost) all my bills.
Denovali recently released the debut album by Infinite Light LtdHow did this collaboration with Amundson e Bakercome about? Are you happy with the result? Will there be a follow-up?
I'm fairly happy with how that project turned out, but not ecstatic. It's hard for me to work with other people. I guess I'm some kind of megalomaniac. That doesn't mean I always think I have the best ideas or anything, but if I believe something could be done better, I'll keep working on it until it fully satisfies me. So working with others isn't a method I'm used to, but I still learned a lot from this project.
Right now we don't know if there will be another Infinite Light Ltd. album. There might be. If there is, it'll probably be quite different from the first.
How did you structure the songwriting process?
Each of us would start a song and send the results to the others so they could add another track. Working this way leads to particular kinds of structures, and I struggled against this method because I didn't feel it was a real step forward for me. I didn't think it was helping me improve... I probably should have communicated these thoughts to Nathan and Aidan, instead of pushing things forward trying to make sense of my contribution.
What do you think of the current slowcore/drone-folk scene?
Actually, those are genres I don't really listen to much anymore.
Last year you traveled through Italy for the tour: what do you think of our country?
I think your country is beautiful! See you next time!
(This last answer was given in German... but given the excellent music he's given us, we forgive him and thank him wholeheartedly!)
P.S. = after the interview was published, Mat let me know that the German in his last answer was a deliberate joke! I hadn't picked up on the humor English!
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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Andrea Vascellari, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
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