Matt Baldwin European/Middle Eastern Tour

3/4 Jerusalem, IL @ Club Uganda
3/5 Jerusalem, IL @ Noon lecture on new music at Musrara Art School
3/5 Tel Aviv, IL @ Levontin
3/7 Geneva, CH @ Cave 12
3/9 Paris, FR @ La Chaise
3/10 Hasselt, BE @ Kunstencentrum Belgie
3/12 London, UK @ Birthday
3/13 Poole, UK @ Cellar Bar
3/15 London, UK @ 12 Bar
3/16 Dublin, IE @ The Joinery
3/17 Tremens, IE @ St. Patrick's Delirium
3/18 Cork, IE @ Plug'd Record

Matt Baldwin Shows and In-store Performance.

Oct. 25th In-store at Metamusic Santa Cruz CA. (4:00 PM)
Oct. 25th @ The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz CA.
Nov. 23rd opening for the legendary Rodriguez at the Great American Music Hall SF, CA.

Matt Baldwin In The East Bay Express.

Beyond Fahey
After paying homage to the influential steel-string player, Berkeley Guitarist Matt Baldwin tries psychedelia.
By Tom Chandler
May 21, 2008
Original post

On the 2006 compilation Berkeley Guitar, three very talented steel-string guitar players, all friends who migrated to Berkeley from in and around Monterey, displayed their love for John Fahey and his legacy on Takoma Records. Matt Baldwin was one of those guys (along with Sean Smith and Adam Snider), but when you approach his debut CD, you pretty much need to forget what Berkeley Guitar led you to believe.

That compilation, while a very fine set, was trying to spread the word about this revival of solo steel-string guitar playing, centered in Berkeley, the longtime home of Takoma. While that's all very fine, it turns out that Baldwin and company are all much more than just solo guitarists. Smith's latest release featured quite a few guest musicians, and Baldwin's Paths of Ignition is layered with overdubs, features vocals (on one tune), and is ripe with psychedelia — all in tremendously good way.

The disc opens in the solo vein, with an extended take on Krautrock legend Neu's "Weissensee," when suddenly an electric guitar sneaks in. Hey! What happened to John Fahey? Oh yeah, Fahey played electric too. "I've been working more on electric guitar lately," Baldwin said. "I grew up listening to Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer. I've always loved Priest." But he looks suspiciously like a '60s holdout, with long straight blond hair held down by a headband. He has an earnest demeanor, and clearly thinks a lot about music.

His playing can go from doubling the acoustic fingerpicking to a wailing, electric, metal-influenced lead. It's pretty stunning. "The thing is that when I play in standard tuning I have a pretty generic blues-rock sensibility," he said. "So I did all the solos in other tunings, which helps me develop a more original lead-guitar melodic sensibility."

While evoking some music of the past, what with the Fahey influence, as well as a certain Krautrock and prog kinship, Paths of Ignition is utterly original. There's a radical reinterpretation of a Judas Priest song called "Winter," with Baldwin singing as if in an echo chamber. Then there's the solo tour de force of "Rainbow." Throughout, Baldwin's guitar playing remains understated yet amazing.

Produced by Baldwin and local songwriting/recording madman Sam Flax Keener, Paths of Ignition is a project of love and inspiration. "What's fun about these songs is they capture that moment of when you create something," Baldwin said. "I just went in with really basic ideas and started messing around, and Sam would say, 'What if we did this?' I would try it out, and say, 'What if I do it like this?'" He laughs, then continues: "Then we would hit some wall, and we'd both be thinking, 'What are we going to do?' So we'd go get some beer and do another take and it would all jell!"

After touring for Berkeley Guitars and doing countless solo shows around the Bay Area and down in Big Sur (where the Folk Yeah! series is gaining increasing fame), Baldwin says his next step will be a full band. Spawned by Paths of Ignition's explorations into electric territory, the new project will consist of musician Kephera Moon playing a chopped B3 Hammond and piano bass, and Keener on drums and doing some delay effects in real time. When asked if the electric concept will open up more venues, where people talking won't interfere with the quiet acoustic guitar, he laughs. "That can be nightmarish! On this tour there were certain nights, like in Nevada City, it was a really hard-drinking night. During the entire set, I could hear people yelling 'Jaeger!'" But then he extols the virtues of playing in places like Big Sur, where a room of one hundred people can get dead silent and focus on the actual music.

So perhaps Baldwin isn't leaving the Fahey ghost behind entirely, but rather broadening to encompass more than the Berkeley Guitar idea. If the current indie scene has taught us anything, it's that there's still plenty of need for organic, tweaked-out folk-oriented music, and Baldwin has a voice that's original and distinct even within that parameter — more like a worldview than just a few guitar tunes. Iconoclast? Yes. 

The Copester Digs On Matt Baldwin

Head Heritage grand wizard, Julian Cope, gives a tasteful nod to Matt Baldwin's new album in the May Drudion 008.

Next, rising from the midst of the new crop of acoustic guitar virtuosos is California’s Matt Baldwin, an uber tall and blond longhair with an immaculate first release named PATHS OF IGNITION on American Dust Records (www.americandust.net). As though appearing out-of-nowhere with just five epic tracks on the whole album were not enough, by choosing to cover Judas Priest’s ‘Winter’ and daring to commence his debut with his cover of Neu’s classic Michael Rother epic ‘Weissensee’, Baldwin sets himself right apart from the pack both in hipness and as one confident motherfucker with an amazing range of guitar playing. Shit, this stuff reminds me of some of the mid-90s stuff Doggen was pulling on the first TC Lethbridge LP MOON EQUIPPED, as hefty distortion rises from behind the spangly acoustic guitars. Hell, he even quotes Funkadelic’s FREE YOUR MIND & YOUR ASS WILL FOLLOW with the track ‘Eulogy and Dark’. Better still, as I listened to this record at 5.20 am last week, Matt’s first vocals from ‘Winter’ (‘In the morning when I wake up’) greeted me exactly as the first light of the spring sun’s orb cut through my window. Now, how righteous is that, motherfuckers? If you want one acoustic guitar record to stick on heavy repeat, make this one your first choice and you’ll not go wrong.

Baldwin will be playing with an electric band on May 26 at the Historic Brookdale Lodge in Santa Cruz, CA.

Nice Matt Baldwin Review.

Posted on Naturalismo today....
The gents at American Dust records have just released the first album by Matt Baldwin. I gave it a spin last night while eating a plum and staring longingly at the ceiling. First and foremost, Baldwin is a guitarist. And yes, before I go any further: comparisons to John Fahey and Leo Kottke are often tossed around wayyyyy too liberally to acoustic composers. I’m guilty of it myself. But aside from the fact that Baldwin plays longform acoustic-based compositions, his approach is far more atmospheric, far more restrained than his fingerpicking forebears. This is a rare case where “atmosphere” is not a compensation for a lack of talent. His virtuosity simmers beneath the surface; his skill is an unspoken subtext in every song. That’s not to say that he doesn’t let the lions loose to ravage a gazelle once and a while. Sometimes water can only boil so long before it bubbles over the edge of the pot, scalding the hand and sending thoughts racing.

Mr. Baldwin will be playing amongst the redwoods on May 10th at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, CA.