Just like
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>> With Me Mom & Morgentaler behind him,
Matt Lipscombe has new tales to tell

COMING TO AN UNDERSTANDING: Matt Lipscombe

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Last Sunday, Montreal’s celebrated pop-ska-polka-punk conglomeration Me Mom & Morgentaler officially came to the end, allowing bassist Matt Lipscombe to move forward—to the beginning.

“Gus [Van Go, MM&M guitarist] and I are both really into Bob Dylan and John Lennon’s songwriting,” says Lipscombe. “We even started off as a folky blues duo, with harmonica and guitar. A lot of people don’t know that, but that’s how we started.”

That thread is picked up again on Lipscombe’s new self-released solo disc, Folk Tales. Earlier in this decade, he’d had a go at a post-MM&M persona in Mr. Matt, which only partially shook off the Me Mom M.O. “I was all over the map, doing rock, world beat, folky stuff, all kinds of stuff. The message really wasn’t clear with that project, whether it was a band or a solo project. It wasn’t even clear in my own head.

“I wanted to strip everything back down to the basics of what I feel is my thing, which is to write songs, and present them in the simplest, rawest, purest way possible.”

Lipscombe points to the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Billy Bragg, Ani DiFranco and especially Ben Harper as inspirations for his album’s folk-rock with pop and jazz inflections. He hasn’t gone utterly minimal, though. Only two tracks on Folk Tales are Lipscombe alone, the rest boast guests like Patrick Watson (on the haunting “Very Big Fortress”), T.J. Plenty, cellist Rebecca Foon, Me Mom/Creature drummer Sid Zanforlin and Lipscombe’s wife, Vivian Doan. “They all have different stories,” he says of the diverse spread of songs, a nod to Folk Tales’ title.

What’s particularly notable is that Lipscombe’s songwriting, previously quite upbeat, has taken a turn on some songs toward, if not darkness, at least a more ambivalent stance. “People say it’s reflective, thoughtful, even mature,” he laughs, but then explains that his approach to songcraft upends that old chestnut about “write what you know.”

“I write about things I don’t understand, things I don’t understand yet and want to understand. I hope the song is going to elucidate it for me, teach me something. If it can connect that way with other people, even better.”

With the Camaromance at
Divan Orange on Wednesday,
Nov. 28, 9 p.m., $5