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matt mulholland

Pop CultureMay 2, 2020

From recorders to records: Matt Mulholland is a serious musician

matt mulholland

The Wellington-based musician’s new album is the culmination of 10 years of memories, YouTube, and jazz school.

It’s been over a decade since ‘My Heart Will Go On – Recorder by Candlelight’ was uploaded to YouTube. It is a work of exceptional craftsmanship. The soft focus, the notes pitching in just the wrong places, and the pensive to-camera glances are all perfectly calculated to earn its almost 32 million views. It’s a serious song played by an excellent musician on the world’s shittest instrument: the recorder.

The artist behind it, Matt Mulholland, has just released a serious album. He is a trained, talented musician and vocalist, with over a decade of band work and songwriting under his belt. Even so, he’s happy to be asked about “the recorder thing”.

I ask if it was the first instrument he learned to play, as is the case for many millennials. “I’ve never learned how to play the recorder,” he says. “I think the first instrument I learned to play was the violin.” I point out that both the recorder and the violin are very painful instruments to listen to a beginner play, and he agrees.

Thankfully, he has an innate ability to find beauty in otherwise chaotic sounds. He studied jazz at university. He’s done musical theatre. He used to be a comedian. These could be the traits of the world’s most annoying artist, but Mulholland isn’t eccentric; he’s just got a lot of talents.

“I’ve always wanted to make things that feel right in the time,” he says of his hectic artistic history. “If you get inspiration, then do it, and do it to the best of your ability.” His recorder arrangements are exquisitely done, his ‘Uptown Funk’ live loops cover brings out details in the song I’d never noticed before, and his new album deftly captures the essence of every genre Mulholland has ever worked with.

“We’ve got a bit of soul, a bit of folk, a bit of country, a little gospel,” he says. “Each track has its own vibe.” Overall, he’d call it pop music, because it’s accessible. It also has a unifying theme: love. When I point this out, he says it’s something he’s just noticed, too. “It’s really a selection of big moments throughout my life over the last 10 years, but I guess a lot of what has the biggest impact is romance.”

Why did it take 10 years to put out an album? “I’ve been doing music my whole life, and YouTube, and I’ve done albums before but they’ve always kind of been homemade jobs. I got to a point where I wanted to see what I could do if I went full-on.” There was no rush for him. This album is about artistic achievement, not hitting a production quota.

He’s excited, and a little nervous about putting it out there in the world. “It’s been a long time coming,” he says. “A massive amount of effort and time has gone into it.” He wanted to be more traditional about the album release, but then Covid-19 hit. “I’ve figured it’s more useful to have new music out now because everyone’s stuck at home.”

Yesterday he hosted a live stream on YouTube – where he has more than 200,000 subscribers – to play songs from the new album. “It’s like sex for ears,” said one commenter, watching Mulholland casually strum a guitar. He’s got fans. “This one goes out to anyone who’s done some travelling before,” he said before launching into the country-esque ‘London’.

“For many years I identified as a comedian,” he tells me. “I thought it would be really funny to be a really good musician and ruin it by doing comedy elements.” Things changed, and he’s less self-ruining now, but his album still has a sense of humour. 

“We often try to be one thing, and that’s quite limiting, not just creatively but also as humans,” he says. Within us all lives multitudes, and within Matt Mulholland lives a jazz musician, a comedian, and a recorder-based cover artist. None of them are dead yet.

He says there’s only so much of playing the recorder or the trumpet you can do before it stops being fun, but we haven’t hit that point yet. “I have one more [recorder video] that I want to do at some point in my life, and it’s awesome. I might do it in 20 years’ time when everyone’s forgotten about it.”

After You Grow is out now on Spotify.

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

Covid-19May 1, 2020

How NZ music can thrive in the post-Covid world

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

With so many gigs and jobs cancelled over the past month, Covid-19 has devastated the New Zealand music ecosystem. But as Recorded Music NZ CEO Damian Vaughan writes, the right support can see the industry emerge even stronger.

By the numbers, this should be a time of celebration for Aotearoa’s music industry. We just finalised the recorded music revenue numbers for 2019 and the sector experienced its fifth consecutive year of growth, up 13.8% on 2018.

New Zealand music is increasingly everywhere and on everyone’s playlist. L.A.B. hit number one on the official charts in early March with ‘In The Air’, the first Kiwi number one single since Lorde’s ‘Green Light’. Six60 played to a sold-out crowd at Western Springs for the second year running, and after scooping up a stack of NZ Music Awards with her debut EP and breakout hit ‘Soaked’, Benee’s new music has been garnering accolades all over the world.

But like many other businesses and individuals across New Zealand, we’re not celebrating because we know 2020 will be one of the toughest years the music industry has ever faced.

The latest data shows our music industry contributes around $730 million to New Zealand’s GDP and employs more than 3,000 people. As a result of Covid-19, the industry will experience significant losses in 2020 primarily across live, broadcast and public performance revenue areas.

The situation is devastating and continues to evolve. In the past month we’ve seen all live music cancelled throughout the country. Performing artists, venues, crew, production suppliers and all in the live music eco-system have experienced dramatic losses, which will continue until New Zealand’s border restrictions are lifted.

Other revenue streams that artists and musicians rely on to support their careers – notably from public performance licensing and broadcasting – have also been substantially impacted as physical premises such as cafes, bars and retail shops have closed and broadcast advertising revenue has reduced.

While the impact of Covid-19 has been shocking and sudden, transformation is nothing new to the music industry, which has been at the forefront of technology disruption for years. Most New Zealanders already enjoy music via a streaming service like Spotify, and during the lockdown our artists were finding new and interesting ways to reach their fans via live performances on social networks. They found receptive local audiences who were engaging with their favourite artists in unique and direct ways.

We know this environment will present us with opportunities to innovate, rebuild and reshape our music industry, if we take action now to cement its future.

It has been heartening that right from the beginning of this crisis the music sector has come together as one, working collaboratively with a shared goal of supporting our artists, songwriters, and the many workers, organisations and businesses who make our live and recorded music industry world class.

One of our first actions was getting in behind the work of our industry charity MusicHelps. For eight years MusicHelps has been providing emergency financial support and professional counselling to music people who have experienced hardship or distress, and never before has its work been more important.

We launched a fundraising appeal, MusicHelps Live, and have also requested financial aid from the government to support all those affected through an uncertain winter. Initially, funds raised will go towards rapid response grants to affected individuals and there will be further announcements and initiatives over the coming weeks and months.

As we continue to navigate through these times, it is imperative that we focus on the health of our domestic market, our musicians and the music they make. We must encourage all New Zealanders to buy, play, stream and support New Zealand music.

The major streaming services are already highlighting Kiwi music across their platforms and supporting our local initiatives such as MusicHelps. We applaud our local radio stations and networks that have increased their New Zealand music airplay over the last 12 months from pop to alternative and everywhere in between and beyond. I’m thrilled to see the first quarter of 2020 has seen the highest proportion of local music across commercial radio for a decade and Kiwi music on radio is increasingly being played during peak periods when the most ears are listening.

In these difficult times we are encouraged by the New Zealand public embracing our artists and new local music. As we start NZ Music Month 2020 we look forward to working with our partners across streaming and radio to really build on this momentum, let’s keep it going!

We are grateful for the substantial support government has made available to individuals and small businesses in the music sector, and we believe the wage subsidy scheme has already saved hundreds of jobs.

However, we will need additional government support to help us recover from the impact of Covid-19. This includes support and relief for small businesses such as music venues and music retailers, and an extension of the wage subsidy scheme for affected music workers until restrictions on mass gatherings are removed and the border is reopened.

Longer-term asks include the reintroduction of something like the Pathway to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme to financially support artists and emerging professionals to start or reignite a creative career. We’ve also called for increased funding for our government music agencies: The NZ Music Commission, NZ On Air and Te Mangai Paho, to support the vital work they do such as ensuring musicians are able to tour domestically and can continue to create, market and earn a living from new music.

As the alert levels start phasing down there will also be a real need for government and local council to work proactively with the industry to problem solve and get live music up and humming again. We will also need to support those sectors that add value to their business through music, especially broadcasters, hospitality and retail sectors that pay licence fees to use music and therefore produce income for our artists and songwriters.

Despite the trials ahead, we know that music can unite us and heal us. Our music whānau is resilient and innovative and will find ways to adapt and thrive in the post-Covid world as we rebuild and reemerge stronger.