Floating On Piano

“I've been working with lots of different people,” the quietly industrious Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, Matt Walker, explains the lack of anything with his name on the cover since his 2005 collaborative album with drummer Ashley Davies. “I've been writing and playing the whole time but I guess I just wanted a break from what goes along with putting out a record and the commitment you have to give to it, and the energy that you and everyone else around you has to put up with,” he laughs.

Walker certainly hasn't been idle – among other things he's been involved in Kim Salmon's “high-concept five-guitar two-drummer no lead vocal” project Salmon, set up a recording studio, produced albums from Crystal Thomas, Liz Stringer and Broderick Smith, with whom he's gigged as a duo, and toured in Mia Dyson's band. The new album, In Echoes Of Dawn, however, sees Walker in a very subdued, reflective mood.

“It's a pretty lonesome record but you know, that's just how it came out. The album's got a bit of a loose lost and found kind of thing I think and that song, [second track] Back To The Hills, was originally going to be at the end because I thought it would make sense in a way to have it, you know, being lost in the woods for a while and then back to the hills, but it ended up more at the front of the album just to kind of get things moving a bit and kind of fits really well there. It's also a bit of a tip of the cap to JJ Cale, that one.”

The album is a very stripped back affair and almost completely a solo affair, the barest embellishments on the odd track courtesy some backing vocals, violin and, on one track, Brad Smith's harmonica.

“I was busy but I wasn't really writing much and I got an upright piano from a friend, so I dusted off my old piano skills and was really enjoying just playing piano. I used to play when I was a little kid but hadn't played it for years and years so I was just improvising on piano for about a year and once I got a feel for it I started writing, so pretty much all these songs were written on piano.

“Once I realised that an album was starting to shape up here, my only real thread was that all the songs were based on playing a piano, so that gave it a certain lack of rhythm and stuff because my rhythm on piano is nowhere near as solid as when I play guitar. And also I wanted to have the vocal not buried in too much noise. So they were sort of my two kinds of ideas that I would try and keep in mind when I did come to record the album.

“There's one song on the album, Mama Go Tell Your Children, written on the mandolin because I'd just bought a mandolin, and it was just a new sound and you're kind of freed up from your old habits. But actually, the title track is a good example – I wanted to create a song that didn't have any real timing in it,” he laughs. “So it doesn't actually have a real rhythm in the verses and follows the ebb and flow of the vocal, playing the guitar along with when I want to sing a lyric; and when it gets to the chorus it settles into a bit more of a rhythm but then when it gets back to the verse it gets suspended and just floats.”

Matt Walker will be playing the following shows:

Friday 28 September - Candelo Town Hal, Candelo NSW
Saturday 29 September - Heritage Hotel, Bulli NSW
Sunday 30 September - Notes, Newtown NSW
Saturday 6 October - Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine VIC
Sunday 7 October - The Toff, Melbourne VIC