New York's Matthew Foster Moore has just finished his full-length debut. Headlines is a thoroughly compelling amalgam of acoustic roots music with dashes of indie-pop and funk thrown in. Foster-Moore’s rhythmic finger-style acoustic guitar and his warm, casual baritone provide the backbone of the twelve-song set. Mandolins, resonator and baritone guitars, accordion, and a modest smattering of various other flavorings come and go during the course of Headlines. But they all stay out of the way and let the songs be sung and the stories be told.
Matthew is a product of Kearny NJ, a tiny rough-and-tumble working class burgh of about 40,000 just a few miles west of New York City. Like any small town close to a big city, it has its fair share of people toiling away at the blue-collar grind in the shadow of the promise a big city holds. It’s therefore not surprising that the stories and characters in Matthew’s songs wrestle with that dichotomy.
It was with that same lunch-pail humility and work ethic that Matthew decided to take a shot at music. “If you told me I’d be doing this (record) a year and a half ago, I would have thought you were crazy. But I did a couple of open mics early on, had a couple of beers because I was nervous, and I got a good response, which motivated me to keep at it, keep playing out and keep writing.”
“Keeping at it” always pays off; after booking himself anywhere and everywhere he could to get his live chops down, when it came time to record, every song on Headlines was nailed in either one or two takes. “It was great, but a bit bewildering,” says producer Jefferson Thomas. “This guy comes in and just bangs it out, on the money. So you ask him if he wants to do another take, and he humbly says, ‘Well, I guess I could, but it’s just gonna come out the same’. You just don’t see a whole lot of that anymore.”
During the recording, rough mixes were heard by organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival, who invited Matthew up for their weekend convention in the fall of 2010. Recording resumed upon his return and was completed in December, after which Matthew headed to Brazil for a couple weeks of live dates and some much deserved R & R. Now, armed with his debut release, Matthew is looking forward to making “headlines” everywhere. Stay tuned!
