Matthew de Zoete Looks up from the Bottom of the World

Published in Hmag: October 2008 The first time I saw Matthew de Zoete live, the place was empty. I should mention that the venue was my living room, and the “show” was a last-minute rehearsal between de Zoete and his pedal steel player (AKA my roommate). De Zoete wanted to go over a few songs before a late afternoon show that day. At the time, they were preparing for a duet at the Festival of Friends. This fall, when de Zoete tours Canada in support of his latest CD, Bottom of the World, many of his Ontario shows will feature the backing band that played with him on the record. “My first record featured more session players,” de Zoete says. “On this one, I was recording with musicians with whom I had developed deep musical and personal relationships.” One of these musicians was Dave King. King, who produced de Zoete’s first album, Across the Sea, returned to produce and drum on Bottom of the World. “I like working with Dave because he never tells me what I want to hear, but always what he honestly thinks,” de Zoete says. “I wanted to go through that sometimes challenging process again…So far, his opinions have only improved my music.” King also offered up the century-old barn near Binbrook where de Zoete and crew spent much of last fall and winter recording the 12 songs on Bottom of the World.

Where the songs on his debut album were laced together by a thread of loneliness, his follow-up is more positive. Across the Sea evoked a strong sense of separation. It was infused with the suffocating sea of its title. De Zoete sang of time, distance, reaching out and being removed. Bottom of the World is more optimistic. Songs like What are the Odds? and Idiodyssey (I’m a Sailor), where de Zoete sings I’ll always make it home to you/Tie me to the mast and hear me say/I’ll be home today, offer a fresh perspective. They sound almost like an epilogue to Across the Sea.

“[The album] deals with the basic issues of my own life which are, for the most part, quite common to the human condition in general,” de Zoete says. “I don't claim that it makes any broad statements or elucidates the meaning of life in a revolutionary way, but I think, to a small degree, it uses the individual to illuminate a few general themes and truths.” A lovely example of this is Not on Fire, a song that sees east coast songstress Jenn Grant harmonizing with de Zoete, about sexual apathy grown out of routine.

The release party for Bottom of the World falls in the middle of a three-legged fall/winter tour that will see de Zoete playing more than 40 dates, coast to coast, including some in the United States. Catch him while you can -at the Casbah on November 1.