Matt Joe Gow ~ The Woodshed Sessions: A Music Review

In the in-between

Where it hits you between tonight and tomorrow

So try and hold on

In the in-between between tonight and tomorrow

Matt Joe Gow

Following on quickly after his successful Music Victoria Award-winning album Between Tonight & Tomorrow Matt Joe Gow has dropped another ripper The Woodshed Sessions.

Recorded live in the studio (all in one take) Matt has acoustically rejigged and revamped previous releases with fine aplomb. The stripped back treatment highlights the timbre in Matt’s voice and allows the lyrics to shine through. Love the addition of a squeaky chair to the instrumentation on I Let You Be.

I contacted Matt about three of the tunes that jumped out at me; Just This One, I Let You Be and a soulful rendition of Between Tonight & Tomorrow.

I’ll let Matt give you the lowdown. “Thank you for the kind words Shep, yes, I thought ‘just this one’ over piano with the harp was a really cool touch, you definitely hear it less piano and harmonica! And yes all live off the floor so all the noises – real acoustic noises! ‘I let you be’ gets revived from my debut album and ‘between tonight’ works great in that format I feel”.

I felt ‘Just This One’ was superior to the original (and that’s not easy). I also wondered how easy it is to play the harp and piano simultaneously. “Thanks, mate! Yeah, it has a slightly more bluesy field due to the way the harmonica is played, and some of the bending and, flat fives I incorporate into the vocal melody. Playing piano and harp rack is no harder than guitar tbh, it’s fine after some practice. But on this one it’s actually me singing and harp hand held and piano is my band mate, just as when I played the piano and blew the harp it was a bit much for the Coles mics we had over the keys. Engineering spiel – all tracked live as was the whole album.”

Head over to Bandcamp to hear and buy the album – The Woodshed Sessions.

Ol’ Shep

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