Jonah Matranga‘s career can be called nothing if not diverse, staggering as it does across almost two decades and at least five incarnations – from the recently-resurrected alternative rock of Far through to the more stripped-down melodies of onelinedrawing. Tonight, the material is largely drawn from onelinedrawing releases – fitting neatly with the mainly one-man-and-his-Macbook set-up.
Not that this is a drawback – Matranga can manage to make ridiculously diverse noises with just an acoustic guitar and his voice. His voice, as anyone already familiar with Matranga will know, is his strongest instrument – producing soft whispers on ‘July’ and half-guttral yelps on ‘We Had a Deal’ with a Frank Black-esque nous for the importance of dynamics. There’s the odd curveball, too – Matranga has an affecting cover of Weezer‘s ‘Say It Ain’t So’ up his sleeve, and old favourite ‘Livin’ Small’ is, rather touchingly, dedicated to Cardiff musical mainstay Spillers.
It’s becoming increasingly easy to become cynical about the idea of true passion in music; it can so often come across as corny, even when meant with the best of intentions. With Matranga, though, it’s glaringly obvious that he means what he says; that he truly believes in music as a vehicle for collective experience. The result is an intimate show in which the barriers between performer and audience truly seem to be breaking down. Heart-warming and thrilling.
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Where you think the future of music goes from here? Do you think it’s going to be a move towards more personalised, tailored methods?
Jonah: Well, there’s one way that part of music seems to be going, and that’s really the part that’s still asking for more money for music. There’s a lot of what’s happening which I don’t enjoy at all, which is ‘freemium’ – which is sort of where you get something for free because you buy something else, like you buy a cup of coffee from Starbucks and you get a free download. I’m not a fan. I’m not interested in being content; I’m not interested in being something that’s aggregated and spit out to this service and that service and served up free of charge, and if you buy this you get this. I’m interested in making something, and then if someone enjoys that then they buy it or exchange for it in whatever way.
I want to make things as interesting as possible and I’m also doing what I can with technology to keep it personal. It’s with with the internet – what’s really fun for me is figuring out ways to have it be as personal an interaction as possible through machines.
From your online shop, you offer personalised recordings of your songs. Is the personal element of music – how people relate to stuff – important to you?
Jonah: What I love the most about music is the making of the idea, so that’s number one, that’s a big part of it. A pretty close second after that is sharing it with people, and so I guess I don’t really mind how I share it with people, but there’s something pretty great about having this really good conversation with someone about, “Hey, look at this thing I’ve made – do you enjoy it? Does it make you think of anything else?”
To hear where the songs are in people’s lives is pretty special, and so the whole thing about unique recordings is that it kind of allows for this conversation to happen, and then it allows me to make a recording of the song with that conversation in mind. It’s the song plus the situation, kind of filtered back through the song and the person so it’s a really great dialogue. That’s probably my favourite idea as far as music delivery, and I’ve made hundreds of them at this point, for weddings and for children and for parents and for friends. I’ve done the weirdest songs and I’ve done my songs in the weirdest ways and it’s just been so fun.