Quick-fire Questions: 10 minutes with Matthew Wilcock
The quieter side of life is a precious commodity in the hectic modern world. This makes the mellowed, moody oeuvre of Matthew Wilcock and his alchemical piano a gift to be grateful for. His alternate reality isn’t escapist; on the contrary, it serves to sharpen our focus and drown out all the buzzing distractions that bombard our daily lives. It asks us to be present in the fleeting time we have.
This is a message that the Manchester native acoustic-electro musician has looked to cook up on his forthcoming album It Can Only Change. The origins of this profound work are tragic: he had been expecting a call from his friend, the Lebanese director Ely Dagher. Instead, he received a harrowing voicemail that captured the 2020 explosion in the Port of Beirut that, all told, took 218 lives and destroyed large parts of the area.
Speaking about the record, Wilcock explained: “The album is an exploration of energy, how small amounts of energy can have giant effects on our world and where does it all go?” He adds: “I started to think about what happened to all those people, the tragedy. Where did they go? Where did their energy go? No doubt a coping mechanism, this abstract train of thought lived with me for a while and moved me to think about other tragic experiences in a similar way, exploring the seemingly frivolous decisions and actions of people that caused these massive human and emotional moments and reactions.”
It is a mark of his ability to channel such emotional scope into his often sparse music that he has drawn plenty of plaudits from his fellow musicians, one of whom is Bill Ryder-Jones. The producer and musician was attracted enough to the subtle wallop of Wilcock’s work that he opted to remix ‘Go To Them’. The result is as a filagreed swell of sonic reflection that sounds like getting lost in a watercolour feel.
So, there’s depth untold in the music, but what of the man? To get to the bottom of this, we caught up with Wilcock and threw some quick-fire questions his way. You can check out his responses below, as well as the new Ryder-Jones remix…
Quick-fire Questions with Matthew Wilcock:
1. What song would you want played at your funeral?
“Oh god, that’s a hard one, Brahm’s 3rd, Bernstein’s version or Duke Pearson’s ‘Cristo Redentor’.”
2. What was your favourite album of 2023?
“Dijon – Absolutely.” (Originally released in 2021)
3. What is your go-to comfort watch?
“I watch a lot of YouTube, so probably something I’m interested in that week: random science, tech, mechanical engineering explainers, or music transcriptions.”
4. If you had to get a lyric tattoo, what would it say?
“I just wouldn’t, I’m afraid.”
5. What song do you hate most in the world and why?
“I don’t think I’ve heard a song I hate if you take the word literally. There are a lot of songs I don’t like, of course, or don’t do anything for me. I guess the closest thing would be something overtly racist/sexist/hate speech, but I would avoid that anyway. Something I heard once: ‘I like the top 5% of everything, every genre, niche, region, style.'”
6. What venue would you love to play most?
“Albert Hall probably, then probably some smallish place in Manchester.”
7. Does London really need a Sphere venue?
“[Laughs], Probably not in Stratford, but maybe somewhere away from where people live.”
8. Which song are you most proud of writing?
“Always my latest stuff. There’s a couple of piano pieces recently that I’m really liking, but I like ideas and concepts too, like a sound installation I’m working on and a series of pieces based on a visual artist’s work.”
9. What was the first song you ever learned to play?
“Something by Oasis on the guitar, maybe ‘Wonderwall’, or ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ or something. I did grow up in working-class Manchester, after all.”
10. What song do you wish you had written?
“Brahm’s Third, ‘Falaise’ by Floating Points, ‘Norwegian Wood’, ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’, ‘Nardis’, Dijon, Absolutely.”
11. Do you believe in UFOs?
“Nah.”
12. Where is the best pub in the world?
“I don’t drink. Best coffee? It can change often, which is nice. But Prufrock, Alchemy in London, Batch Baby.”
13. What song features the best vocals ever recorded?
“Ohio Players – ‘Pride & Vanity’.”
14. Can you recommend an album we’ve probably never heard before?
“Ohio Players, Pleasure? Or that Dijon, Absolutely, OMG. The live music video versions are amazing too.”
15. Are The Beatles overrated?
“No way, you try writing that many tunes, underrated/overrated. That’s just another way of asking how much you like or dislike it, I guess?”
