Tag: Matt de Harp

From Edinburgh and now based in France, Mulholland has had a decidedly eclectic career, variously working with Captain Sensible, Toumani Diabaté and Damon Albarn. Fighting With Your Shadow, his fourth solo album, draws on an assortment of musical strands, particularly working with French percussionist Stéphane Doucerain and Paris-based musicians bassist Christophe Borca and drummer Grégor Heuzé.

It opens in surging style with the ringing guitars of ‘Reality TV’, a lament for the dumbing down of popular disposable culture (“the electronic prattle of a million mobile phones/and everything’s delivered half-consumed and thrown away/discarded like another wasted day”) and the rise of AI (“We used to call it science fiction/now we’re talking to machines/hoping that they’ll tell us what it means”) but, hey don’t worry “‘cos there’s an app for everything and God knows what the future’s going to bring”, ending with the sage wisdom that “You’ll find a better social network with your friends down at the bar/It might help you remember who you are”.

There’s more plangent jangling guitars with ‘Another Memory’, a song written for Doucerain when he fell into a coma following a heart op (“I could hardly take it in when I heard that you were hanging there between the darkness and the light/I could only hope you’d win the fight”). Given he plays drum in the track, he clearly did.

Stabbing guitar bass and drums propel, the moving on-themed ‘Somebody Else’s Problem’ was sparked by a comment from a friend whose ex continued to interfere in his life (“I tried my best and all the rest /but there’s nothing I can do and now I can’t remember what I used to see in you/and there ain’t no point in dredging up/ all the things you put me through/’cos it don’t matter anyhow/you’re somebody else’s problem now”).

Another comment, this time by the late songwriter Chico Antonio, about someone fighting futile battle with his shadow inspired the drum-heavy, nasal Dylan-like title track about paranoia (“Walking down the empty street /you get the feeling someone’s following you/Lurking in the darkness watching everything you do”) and how “Every time you throw a punch/You’re the one who takes it on the chin/’cause when you fight with your shadow/you know that you’re never going to win”.

Sean Condron on second electric guitar, the vaguely Eastern-sounding vibe of ‘Sleepwalking’ stems from the zombie-like waking nightmare nature of life in lockdown (“sleepwalking to the end of the world”) “on auto-pilot and cruise control”.

Featuring the aptly monickered Matt de Harp on harmonica, the bluesier, vocally slurred ‘Nothing To Prove’ is a don’t let the bastards grind you down number that takes a swipe at the “Evil little reptiles who think they know it all” and a reminder to “hold your head high and remember it’s true that no matter what they tell you, you ain’t got nothing to prove”.

The tempo given a more scurrying pace, ‘Best Times’ again comes from received wisdom, from his father (“the best period of my life is always now”) and cousin Gráinne (“Wherever I am is the best place I could possibly be”) sparking the songs live for the moment sentiments rather than always looking for the greener grass. Then, Condron again on guitar and Joe Armstrong providing backing vocals, the chiming folk rock ‘Face In The Mirror’ dates back to a morning after the night before to the early 90s in Prague (“See my reflection in the mirror/the knife, the powder and the spoon/I see faces in the music and the smoke rising across the room /Well, I guess I lit the fire/Just to see how it would burn”).

Another fuelled by the listlessness and disorientation of lockdown (“Voices in the street outside are seeping through the door and letters lie unopened in a pile upon the floor/Papers strewn around the room and bills I have to pay/but they’re going to have to wait until another day”), Condron on riffing guitar and Ronald Orr pummelling the drums, ‘Morning Sun’ thunders along with a Dylan goes punk energy while, initially recorded for a different album and born while daydreaming on a drive through France, his wife asleep beside him, ‘By The Time The Tales Are Told’ has a sort of ‘Get Out Of Denver’ spur to the lyrics (“We left town in a hurry and kept driving through the night/now there’s a copper sunrise on the left and a full moon on the right/wraiths of mist on frosty fields and trees all red and gold/there’ll be 500 miles behind us by the time the tales are told”).

Fighting With Your Shadow ends with the simple acoustic guitar, trot-along banjo and percussion of the tongue-in-cheek ‘A Country Song’ which draws on the clichés that permeate the genre’s songs (“I failed at my relationships, I failed at my career and now I’m sitting, popping pills, and crying in my beer/bewailing all the woes of life and the shit that comes along …If I had a pickup truck, I know it would break down/and it ain’t hard to guess the end if I had a faithful hound”) as our luckless narrator concludes “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m worse than a country song”, resolving to pick himself up because, well, you know, “there ain’t nothing worse than a country song”. Well worth going a few rounds with.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: www.markmulholland.net

‘Best Times’ – official video: