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We all have those times when it feels as if our lives have been put on hold. When anything exciting, everything that will improve our situation, all those things that we have been looking forward to are still floating just out of reach. We are sure they will reach us one day, but that day is not today. So what do we do in the meantime? Well, if you are anything like Brian Mathew you pour all your frustrations and thoughts into a deft and delicate acoustic folk song.
Blending the genre’s established traditions with a more forward-thinking sound and taking in no small amount of pop accessibility, “Waiting Around To Live” is a masterful single. Driven by a simple, unfussy, and perfectly propulsive beat, wrapping itself in additional piano lines and melodic bass runs, shimmering percussion, and additional sonic motifs, it is an already captivating song even before it plays its masterstroke. And that touch of magic is to include a trumpet solo where less imaginative music makers would have stayed with the guitar. From then on, the song is sold, and Mathew can do no wrong.
And if “Waiting Around to Live” feels like a song from another, earlier era, that is due to the production process, which takes its cues from the sound of the days of four-track capabilities. The more restrictive process brings something simple and elegant out in the finished piece.
If you thought, as I did, that the previous single, “Old Flames,” was Mathew setting his highest benchmark, think again. As great as that song is, “Waiting Around to Live” is the sound of him setting new sonic standards for himself.
