Young, Matthew / Traveler’s Advisory

Drag City

Mixing a hammered dulcimer and a drum machine makes no logical sense. Taking your lyrics from instruction manuals is not a good idea. Covering Michael Hurley in 1986 is about as out of step with the times as you can get. And yet... somehow this 25-year-old “12th-century / folk / electronic album” feels perfectly up to date and dare we say... cooler than anything else you’ll hear this year! Drag City and Yoga Records proudly present MATTHEW YOUNG’s Traveler’s Advisory. Recorded at home, made and distributed at the end of the first age of vinyl, Traveler’s Advisory is a startlingly original work: an utterly unique mix of vocals, dulcimer, banjo, Casio synths, and electronic drums, Matthew played every instrument and recorded every note. A graphic designer by trade, he too created the album artwork. Aside from a few traditionals and one cover version, Young composed everything. The haunting song Young chose to cover, “Werewolf,” comes from another original, Michael Hurley, approximately 20 years before Hurley came back into fashion with the kids. The striking blend of “electronic” and “traditional” should appeal to fans of Arthur Russell; another pioneer responsible for an unlikely wedding of drum machine and cello. Opener “Objects in Mirror” does indeed evoke Russell’s intimate home recordings compiled on the posthumous Calling Out Of Context. So much private press music comes off as the result of some sort of vanity—“private press” is often nothing more than code for “vanity press.” Hearing Traveler’s Advisory, one is struck by the vivid image of an artist who is full of ideas and learning how to express them as he goes along out of a sense of necessity. Young is the receiver and transmitter of strange ideas drifting in the ether, and renders them quite understandable to any open-minded listener.

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