released May 21, 2021

Matthew Dickson: Guitars, Vocals
Roscoe Wilson: Bass, Lap Steel, Backing Vocals, Assorted Percussion

All songs written by M. Dickson except 'Moonshiner' (Trad. Arr. M.Dickson)

Produced by R. Wilson

Recorded in Paderborn, Germany and at The Ranch, Glasgow.

Artwork by Helene Erftenbeck (www.instagram.com/pixie_van_black/)

Liner Notes by Andy Grozier

Special Thanks: NH


There is a fine, pinpoint art to writing a country, or indeed a folk song. You can place yourself within them but never too deep: You have to leave something for the universe to borrow without fear of retaliation. You are encouraged to keep them simple, clean enough to be played upon a beaten guitar at a campsite or in the smoke haze of a rented room. But, there also has to be a certain something to them. Something dancing upon the thin line between universal and cupid-arrow-heart-struck personal. There is often ethereality, regularly gritty reality, occasionally equal parts both, dancing under the same unbelievably-starred skies.

Country songs, when it gets down to the dirt, are cruel mares to attempt to ride. You can spend decades trying to saddle that pivotal bridge or chorus line, that particular turn of phrase. It may well elude you ‘til someone carves it on your gravestone. A life lost in the search of the right horse, even just the right boots to ride in. 

Matthew Dickson does not appear to struggle from this particular ailment. He is now very much the seasoned cowboy.

An Extended-Player of Moonshiner’s ilk has been on the cards for Dickson for some time. In 2017 the songwriter released his Ways of Folk: Vol 1, a collection of old folk tunes interpreted with style and accompanied by some brilliantly crafted liner notes from Dickson himself. We have also had satisfying morsels of the songwriter’s talent for stripped-back folk in previous records Acidic and The European Blues (from 2013 and 2019 respectively), but as yet a full meal. So, Moonshiner has been coming and while not the feast some of us may hunger for, it is a thing to savour.

A certain ease unites this five song collection. Almost, dare I say it, a laissez-faire approach. An approach that only carries when the artist has his craft well in hand. The guitars run without restraint. Dickson lets his voice stretch and twist, dip and dive, fly when the mood strikes. The bass keeps everything held in, moving things along leisurely. Lap steel guitar drops in to add that melancholy soul that only lap or pedal steel can. There is a comfort in listening that you feel most probably was reflected in the creation of the piece. Roscoe Wilson, in the producer’s (and additional musician) chair, brings the warmth and cohesion that he has done for Dickson’s previous recordings. 

The first song, Apples Grow On An Orange Tree, left me wondering who wrote the original. But it is an original. There is possibly no harder task in music than to write something that sounds like it has always been there, and yet here it is, track one. A beautiful booming bass, a floating vocal take and some flitting and flighty guitar. The song carries you on its wing across the grove and beyond. Onward across the soundscapes of Dickson’s world.

The Telephone Can Ring brings us down to perch on the telephone wires. “If the grass grows brown, and the song it fails to sing…” the narrator offers “…you can come to me”. A seemingly delicate country song that sets the scene for an ode to friendship and communication, instead cuts through to deliver on the frailties of the promises we make to our loved ones. The frailties of our selfless-selves. The promises we make to our lovers and friends to be there while instead we leave that phone to ring, and ring, and ring. And ring. “I’ve broken all your promises, the ones I could get/Yes I’ve broken all her promises, but I’ll find some more yet”.

The country-dirt earth may well smack you in the face when the title track arrives. Moonshiner, the old folk song, Irish or American whichever is your pleasure, haunts this EP, lingering at its centre, and earning its role as title-giver. Dickson sounds as though singing from the grave. The ghostly, cracking vocal-take is otherworldly. You can taste the liquor in the air. You can feel the desperation-sweat. The song acts as the thematic anchor for the EP. Here is the want, and the need, and the questioning and questing. The search for meaning. Something to seek beyond the bottom of the bottle. The room is filled with smoke, and longing and lonesomeness. 

I may pass up on the notion of writing about Two Addresses knowing that it needs no further words. It encapsulates the struggle of being at home and yet never at home. Of being split between where you belong and where you want to belong. The song says it so concisely that it renders any further words spent on it redundant. So, let the song speak. “The fortune or the fall, of two addresses, all in all”.

Here, with this EP, we do not get a feast of Dickson’s folky/country roots, but we get just enough. Moonshiner sends you back to your stereo to play it again. Pour yourself another. It ends, appropriately, with a clearing of the throat. The awkward clearing to summon up a new conversation. A shift. Dickson has done this tone-shift beautifully at some point or another on both previous albums. He has a way of dropping the saddest of tales before then lifting a glass, raising one up to ‘all that’ and moving on to better times ahead.

Before Tonight Bleeds Through Tomorrow is a shrug and a wink to all that went before. “I ain’t got use for any kind of sorrow”. It’s the song for those who have stuck it out all night, kept the drinks flowing and the records playing just to see the sunrise, see the debris from the night before in the new morning light, sweep it up, grab a beer and head on out into the sun. It is that little glimmer of what some may call hope creeping through the curtains. It is the light against the dark. It is the blue sky morning sun against the black canopy of stars. The ethereal and the grit. The balance of everything. It is the universal.

Moonshiner is five songs carrying you from the heavens to the dirt and back up again. With every empty bottle raised, there is a dawn just sneaking up through the glass.

Pour yourself another. Press play, just one more time. 

- Andy Grozier, Sunday May 9th, 2021