The Tallest Man on Earth's 'Just Beyond Endless Mountain' Is a Gloriously Weathered Masterpiece of Tape and Tradition
The story Matsson tells on himself is the good kind. For years he nursed “this immature aversion to the whole cultural inheritance I grew up with” — the polskor, the old field recordings, the fiddle music of Dalarna. Then he moved back. “Those field recordings have made me less afraid,” he says. “More than anything, it’s the melodies that have changed.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: He did almost all of it himself, recording to mixing, on the farm, and the signal path is the story: tracks through old reel-to-reel machines, vocals through an antique Nagra — “which gives them this beautiful distortion.” Glide reports he preferred worn tape and, when that wasn’t degraded enough, “pressed his finger against the tape head to give it that wobbly sound.”
The Spatial Dynamics: musicOMH calls the opener “a suitably intimate, almost lo-fi introduction to the record,” the whole “best rewarded by an immersive listen.” Space arrives through players rather than plugins — ANTI- credits Martin Hederos with most of the fiddle parts and piano overdubs, and CJ Camerieri flew in from Los Angeles for the horn arrangements. The clarinet detail musicOMH singles out on “In The Silver Wire Up The Hill” is the album in miniature.
Standout Performance
Matsson himself, player and tape operator in equal measure. Glide: “His fingerpicking is inventive and assured, and his dry, crackling voice has never sounded more resonant or free.” Runner-up: Sofia HK, who duets on “Overboda,” written for a friend’s wedding. “Our voices really melt together,” he says. “It’s a true love song.”
Why It’s Certified
The tradition isn’t decoration, it’s structural: polskor move in a lopsided triple meter and slide between major and minor, and you hear exactly that on “Scully, It’s Me,” which musicOMH ties back to the form and Glide calls “a hallmark of traditional Swedish fiddle music.” musicOMH, 4/5: “a subtle and rich evolution of his sound that rewards immersive listening.” Paste found it “brooding without being boring, gentle without being twee.” Glide’s closing line stands: “Twenty years, and Matsson’s music is still a force of nature.”