Chez Nous Presents

I once read on another blog, “calling someone the best songwriter since Dylan is about as original as listening to MGMT”. Humorous and poignant, yes. However, The Tallest Man on Earth is certainly doing a good job of making people seem unoriginal. In support of his third album, The Wild Hunt, he will be playing St. James Hall on May 12th.

The proof is in the pudding:

Now how original do you feel? Tickets are available at Zulu, Scratch, Red Cat and Ticketweb this Friday.

“Over the last half-century, the tag “Dylanesque” has been slapped on so many mediocre folksingers clutching battered Moleskines that it’s become a meaningless joke, a critical hiccup, a silly, lazy way of invoking an age-old raspy voice/acoustic guitar combo. It’s gotten so bad that, in 2008, yammering on about the cliché of dubbing someone “the next Dylan” has become a cliché in itself. Still: It’s exceptionally hard to talk about Scandinavian folksinger the Tallest Man on Earth (also known as Kristian Matsson) without mentioning Bob Dylan’s early years, mostly because Matsson manages to embody Dylan’s effortlessness so well (Dylan was trying really, really hard, sure– but he sang like he didn’t give a shit), infusing his songs with a detachment that, miraculously, is neither cold nor alienating. Like Dylan, Matsson is so natural a songwriter that these tracks feel predetermined, tumbling out of his mouth with an ease and grace that’s increasingly uncommon.”
— Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork, May 6, 2008