A war between gardens and mowers. It was the ambitious double concept album that Matt Holubowski wanted to make. But faced with disbelief from his record company, the songwriter decided to brush the idea aside and work on an album that’s more “conventional” but just as listenable. So here he offers us Like flowers on a melted lawna title that came to him in a dream after a trip to the top of a volcano in Guatemala.
your previous album, strange, was released on February 20, 2020, a few days before the pandemic. How have you been living all this time?
“I first gave virtual concerts because I wanted to keep myself busy. But after a month or two, it was hard to find pleasure and get turned on by it. It was also complicated for the technique. When I realized that most shows won’t be rescheduled, I had to grieve a bit. I then decided to follow tutorials on YouTube and take online courses on software like Pro Tools. I tried to understand in a more intimate way the tools I used, beyond the guitar and the piano. The fact that I worked so intensively with the technique shaped the sound and color of the album a lot.
Where does the title of the album come from? Like flowers on a melted lawn?
“It’s an image that came to me in a dream some time ago. It started with a picture of a volcano I climbed in Guatemala. When you are at the top you can see another nearby volcano that is active. One day I had a dream where I was on the volcano, there was a lava flow and in that flow was a lonely flower. […] This type of image kept coming to my mind at a time when everything seemed impossible. That gave me a lot of hope.”
The song gardens of mower is about a dispute between a garden and a mower. How did you envision this story?
“I like the absurd very much. I had to think of the image of a mower and a garden lawn, the purpose of which could no longer be the opposite. The existence of one endangers the existence of the other. There is no reconciliation. I thought the picture was a bit funny and dramatic.”
“In the beginning it was even supposed to be the title of the album. I wanted to do a double album where there would be two different universes. In the first, the gardens had won the war. The songs would have been very acoustic and stripped down versions. The second time, the mowers had won. The songs were the same but in more constructed, electronic versions. When I introduced this concept to Audiogram [son étiquette de disque]they told me the idea was good but difficult to sell [rires]. I decided to keep this idea in a song.
The Estonian National Symphony Orchestra takes part in three tracks of the album. How did the contact come about?
“It was half a joke at first because we didn’t have a concrete plan. We knew there was room to fill on certain lanes. […] Peter [Amato, le coréalisateur] told us that his friend Owen Pallett had worked with the Estonian Symphony Orchestra and it was really affordable. We sent them the sheet music and watched them on Zoom record the songs in the studio. The process was really fascinating!”
The album contains a rare piece in French, The moon died laughing. Why did you choose French here?
“Why not? [rires] That’s the best answer I can give. I didn’t choose French. I wrote a song that happened to be in French. And because it was good, I put it on the album. It has nothing to do with language. I like writing in French. But it really doesn’t come naturally to me. […] It’s not like I sit down and think: I’m doing a song in French today. The day I do this I will be able to say I’m sold and I’m doing it for the money! It never will be. She ends up there because I like her. I had fun designing it. But I hesitated to put it on the album precisely because I knew everyone would ask me that question!
How is your rest of the year with the shows?
“Next week we will announce a spring and fall tour in Quebec. We are also planning things in Europe and for the rest of North America. We’ve had a lot of changes because of the pandemic. There are teams that we’ve had that were a little decimated.
♦ Album by Matt Holubowski, Like flowers on a melted lawn, is on the market. The dates of his tour will be announced next week mattholubowski.com.