Award-winning Dunedin songwriter Matt Langley's latest album is the result of plenty of hours spent at his craft, writes Shane Gilchrist.
There's a good reason Dunedin singer-songwriter Matt Langley sent his new album Virginia Avenue to reviewers and media types several weeks before its actual release next Friday.
Although he is proud of his efforts, he thinks the album is a ''slow burner''.
Adopting an ethos that is veritably old-fashioned in this world of customised computer playlists, Langley has gone and recorded a 15-track album that is designed, even in CD/digital form, to be enjoyed as two sides, separated by an instrumental smack-bang in the middle.
What was he thinking?
''I wanted to make a proper album, something that had a bit of depth and a few different colours,'' the Broad Bay-based Langley explains.
''I wanted it to be a journey to the last note of the album ... I knew this would be an album that required some listening.''
Langley, who turned 40 last year, has honed not only his writing skills but also his studio nous over the past two decades, the result of having been involved in the recording of three solo releases - 2007 EP Lost Companions, 2010 album Featherbones and, now, Virginia Avenue - as well as two records with Dunedin '90s rock act Fold and one with former Dunedin band the George Street Patsys.
Musically, he has moved around a fair bit in that time, going from the grunge-inspired riffs of Fold to a twang that earned him the 2010 Apra Best Country Song Award for his song, 7.13. In short, his songbook is rather large.
Having toured with a range of acts over the past two years, including the Eastern, Darren Watson, Mel Parsons and Australian Jordie Lane, Langley also found time to write. The result: he had more than 50 completed works from which to choose when he entered a Wellington studio last year.
Named after a street in Broad Bay where Langley lived (he has recently moved ''a few hundred metres around the corner'') and wrote the album, Virginia Avenue has been produced by Brett Stanton (The Phoenix Foundation) and Riki Gooch (Trinity Roots, Eru Dangerspiel) and also features Gooch on drums, Tom Callwood (Phoenix Foundation) on bass and Thomas Watson (Cassette, Fly My Pretties) on guitars.
''I was just enjoying doing a whole lot of writing and being in Broad Bay. Part of the theme is about place and time. I had a lot of time alone, just writing. So I amassed a lot of songs.
''I did a demo early last year in Wellington with Brett and recorded 40 songs in two days. By the time we got to rehearsals, we starting picking favourites. I wanted the band members to gravitate towards the material they liked.
''Initially, I thought an 11-song album would be enough, but when I heard what we'd done and how it all fitted together ... the 15 made sense to me. After that, I couldn't chop any out.''
Langley says though he'd planned to record the album in a house in Taranaki, he and his musical friends ended up in a small Foley (sound effects) room in Mount Cook, Wellington. On listening back to early results, they decided to stay there.
The reasons are obvious. The productions skills of Stanton and Gooch aside, Virginia Avenue is warm, lush and, at the same time, spare and restrained, all of which is likely the result of four musicians enjoying one another's company in a small space.
''The guys are just great players and they got involved in the songs,'' Langley says.
''We just had four guys playing in the same room, getting the feel. That's why all the tracking was done in six days. Riki and Brett also managed to capture a lot of colour, far more than any other recording I've been involved in.''
Langley is not exaggerating. Virginia Avenue might just be his best work yet.
Highlighted by the slightly downcast yet soaring Last Days Remain, on which horns and harmonies contrast with acoustic guitar, the album ranges from the dark alt-country strains of Ghost Wanted to the pop joy of Love Inside to the cacophonous Unto The Ends of This Earth to a gentle finger-picked closer, Cemetery Stone.
''There are some moments of beautiful production,'' Langley says.
''The drum sound is fantastic. It kind of helps that Riki is playing - he's just amazing. For the most part, my voice is up front. There is nothing hidden.
''My job was to play and sing these songs and allow these other guys to then take over. I felt like I didn't have to hold the whole thing up. I wanted their input. We all just dived in. I know the album has my name on it but it will always feel like it was this band's record.
''I know we played some sad songs but there were some serious gut-laughs after every take as well. We just enjoyed each other's company.''
The fact Watson shouldered a fair chunk of the guitar load also helped, Langley says, allowing him to focus on his singing, ''to phrase things a whole lot more''. In short, to relax. Compare that to previous release Featherbones, which Langley says was a ''hell of an album'' to make.
''By the end of recording that album I got really sick. I was just beat-up ... but I learn a lot about how I wanted to approach the next album.
''With Featherbones, I rehearsed that album every weekend for a year in my ex-girlfriend's basement. While she was living upstairs with her new man, she was hearing all these songs ... so I came out of that tired and sick and knew I didn't want to make a record that way again.''
Langley has also received a little help in recent years: be it in the form of the 2010 Apra Best Country Song Award for his song, 7.13, or Creative NZ funding ($14,500) to record and mix his new album, which is being distributed by his own label, Matt Langley Music.
''Songwriting can be a lonely task if you let it,'' Langley says.
''So it was good to get affirmation from other songwriters. I know the Apra award didn't sit well with a whole bunch of people because I'm not a country artist, but the idea was to write a country song. It was highly unlikely that I won it, in retrospect, but any surprise is good.''
When he is not writing, recording or performing his songs, Langley works for a Dunedin environmental company, helping to plant out coastlines as well as rid areas of scrub.
Catch him: Matt Langley and band celebrate the release of Virginia Avenue with a performance at Chicks Hotel, Port Chalmers, on Friday, May 3, supported by Dunedin act The hifting Sands.
