The Matthews Baartmans Conspiracy: Distant Chatter (2021)

I am currently reading Richard Thompson’s excellent memoirs ‘Beeswing’, and in that he talks about how they had to let Iain Matthews go from Fairport Convention as he wanted to follow a different musical path, which directly led to Matthews forming Southern Comfort. That band did not last too long, but after Matthews moved to Holland in the early 2000’s he felt he had to create a new version and brought in Dutch musicians to help him fulfil the dream, one of whom was guitarist, songwriter, producer, Bart Jan Baartmans. Fast forward to 2020, and as the pandemic took hold and the prospect of live performance faded, the two of them decided to write as a duo and then perform in that manner when restrictions were lifted. 18 months and seventeen tunes later, they have released 10 of these as ‘Distant Chatter’ with Matthews providing acoustic guitar and vocals, and Baartmans everything else.

I have only seen Matthews play once, when Plainsong performed at the 2017 Cropredy Festival, but have always loved his delicate vocals, and time has done very little indeed to impact them. True, there is a slight quaver when he holds notes for any length, but it just adds to the joy. When I first listened to this I was reminded of Jay Turner and some of his solo material, but in a more roots and Americana tyle. The album feels relaxed, no rush, just two musicians with plenty of space in the arrangements which are always delicate and full of space, allowing the vocals to really shine. Only one of the songs has a solo writing credit, closer “Is That It”, with everything else being a collaboration between the two, and sounds as if it was recorded by Matthews with Baartmans adding some slide afterwards, as this is all about finger picked acoustic and Matthews lush vocals.

This is a nice little album, and one which fans of acoustic singer-songwriter material would do well to discover.

Rating: 8/10