End of year round up: Matt Jones

Image: Haitus Kaiyote 

Whilst various publications wave their end of year top 100's across social media, we're giving the power to the people. Matt Jones is next in the spotlight, one of our hallowed contributors who also produces music under the moniker Jecht Rye (listen to his track 'On Coping' below).

His palette is eclectic as they come, evidenced by a glistening review of Robert Glasper at Royal Northern College Of Music and his a primary role in This City Is Ours Records, who recently brought Japanese producer Daisuke Tanabe to Islington Mill.  

What's been the stand out gig or club night you've been to this year?

Hiatus Kaiyote at Islington Assembly Hall in London, with Taylor McFerrin in support.

I’d been lying in wait to see Hiatus Kaiyote since their discography was only one short album long and their only UK appearances were limited to Boiler Room sets I absolutely rinsed, which again consisted of tunes that were still a year away from release.

I had a similar relationship with Taylor McFerrin the year before, and his Early Riser was one of my favourite albums of 2014, which Nai Palm, the singer from Hiatus Kaiyote, also featured on.

This gig was the culmination of all that patience and scrounging for new material, and they killed it. It helps when you’re already enamoured by the music before you go in, but honestly their performance was unimpeachable regardless of what you’re into.

They hit the sweet spot between art and entertainment – credible and intellectually well-conceived, but still undeniably fun. Half of their songs could be described as fan favourites, and their enthusiasm for their music and audience was never more evident. I’m certain nobody left that show disappointed.

What about your best festival memory?

Nas performing the entirety of Illmatic at Parklife this year. I’d seen him twice before and on both occasions he was touring the Damian Marley stuff which I’m not too keen on, but I went along whenever he was in Manchester because how am I not going to go? It’s Nas.

Anyway, I’ve been chasing him for years to hear at least ‘The World Is Yours’, and I finally cornered him and got the whole featuring album. I was spoilt.

While we waited for Nas to come out too, Kendrick’s ‘King Kunta’ blared through the PA and my mate began busting out some thoroughly menacing dance moves. Subsequently he became best friends with a guy who was clearly the biggest hip hop fan of all time, a fact I know by virtue of his brief, bizarre quizzing of my mate on hip hop history once the tune ended and they’d concluded dancing at each other. He passed, I think. That one’s now a personally cherished memory.

What were your five favourite albums of 2015?

Hiatus Kaiyote Choose Your Weapon

Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly

Lapalux Lustmore

Floating Points Elaenia

BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah Sour Soul

Honourable mention: Archy Marshall A New Place 2 Drown. It only came out last week, so at the minute I’ve not had chance to savour it, only devour it. But I love King Krule and Sub Luna City and at the rate I’ve been playing this thing, it nods to the kind of longevity the rest of this list has proven it has. I just wish it was released 2 months ago so I could rationalise making room for it.

What five tracks released this year have you had on repeat the most?

Hiatus Kaiyote 'Molasses'

The Gaslamp Killer – 'In The Dark (Live)'

Kendrick Lamar 'Momma'

Robert Glasper 'So Beautiful'

Lapalux 'Closure (feat. Szjerdene)'

What piece of music news struck you most this year whether good or bad?

This struck me more on the comedy spectrum, so I’m not sure where it sits on good or bad, but it’s stuck in my mind for whatever it’s worth, and it’s Jack White’s guacamole palaver. It’s just, I’m certain there’s no elegant way of defending a convoluted guacamole recipe appearing on a rider. The more seriously somebody takes it the less seriously we can take them and the funnier it becomes.

Carpet bombing blogs and websites with a personally written press release designed to distance yourself from the implication that you’re a heartless entitled celebrity is a hilarious overcorrection, and just feeds the trolls, especially when you channel your inner toddler and fundamentally insist “I’m not a diva because I say so!” It was all a bit absurdly delicious, more so than the guacamole, I’d bet.

What's been your biggest musical let down of 2015 (this can be anything from club closures to disappointing albums)?

I’ve got an idea! Let’s go and see a widely revered band that haven’t played in Manchester in nearly ten years and have a chat about how our day was. I swear, it was farcical. It was almost concerted, like the world’s dullest flash-mob. Talking through a performance is frowned upon at open mic nights, let alone a concert hall filled with two-thousand people with a thirty-odd quid investment each in the two hours ahead of them. I’m referring to The Cinematic Orchestra at Albert Hall in Manchester; it was easily my most unbearable gig of the year. 

It wasn’t the fault of The Cinematic Orchestra; their performance was as on point as it ever is, and it was mixed really well for the room, but between the relentless undulating muffle of audience conversation, the ridiculous optimism of drunken women holding five pints above their heads and sloshing and boob-bouncing their way back through the crowd, the half-closed-for-VIP balcony forcing traffic elsewhere, and my nose brushing up against the nape of the hot neck of the behemoth in front of me (who’d been unsettlingly scratching at it mere inches from my face all night), the music was completely undermined and I couldn’t wait to leave.

The gig should have never been at that venue, unless it was temporarily seated. It should’ve been at the Bridgwater Hall.

Who has been your musical hero in 2015 and why?

Hiatus Kaiyote, again. I can’t bang on about them enough. They’ve defined my 2015. They released the EP ‘By Fire’ in November 2014 and followed it up with the album Choose Your Weapon in May this year, which featured all three tracks from the EP. I wasn’t sick of them by May and I’m still playing them every other day a year later. I’ve never gotten so close to the centre of my music taste.

Now we’ve reduced the accessibility of music to what‘s historically its most basic and democratic, a kind of cultural evolution has arisen in which there are always two thousand variations of the same idea at any one time, each as available as the next, and only the most appropriately equipped mutation makes it on to land.

Tougher though it is, it’s for the good of innovation, and I feel like the monster that emerges from the swamp is unprecedented, but perfectly timed, and perfectly formed, if only even for myself and the relatively small subculture that receive it. I couldn’t imagine Hiatus Kaiyote before they existed, but I knew as soon as I heard them they were exactly what I wanted to hear. I don’t feel like that very often.

What musical moment or release are you most looking forward to in 2016?

I’m hyped for what’s going to come out of WOKE – the Flying Lotus, Shabazz Palaces, and Thundercat supergroup. They teased everybody with ‘The Lavishments of Light Looking’, featuring George Clinton, and Herbie Hancock said he’s working with Flying Lotus after appearing on You’re Dead! last year, so maybe we’ll see a more conscious celebration of that era.

Thundercat has been holding the torch for a while but all those guys know they’re musically descended from ‘70s funk and jazz fusion, so if the single is anything to go by, I’m hoping for a new dawn of trans-dimensional hip hop funk to pick up where Parliament, Funkadelic, and Headhunters left off.

Follow Matt on Twitter @JechtRye 

Read: End Of Year Round Up: John Thorp