There is something wilfully naive about the sound that Matthew Squires makes on this, his latest single, the wonderfully named “Song of a Cactus.” Not just from mere DIY musical choices, instead, he seems to head off towards something innocent, something wide-eyed and ends up in a place where the cynicism and darkness of the music industry are left behind, a place of rarified air and openness, and where the music feels like its own reward. To be fair, it is the only place where such a song could survive in this cold and calculating world.
I’m sure I’m not the first to notice the echo of Daniel Johnston in Matthew’s music, and it unquestionably comes from a similar place, especially when, as he has done here, he swaps his regular backing band and the bigger sound they afford for just a few synthy sonics to round things out.
The result is a wonderfully unpolished, unsophisticated, and unpretentious song, which I mean in all the most positive of meanings. Raw music, arguably, has a potency all of its own, power and potential that is lost when people start favoring money over song-crafting, or following fashion over sonic adventure. This song makes just such an argument.
