Many people on the Coast know Matthew Lovegrove as the manager of the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. Others know him as a guitar-strumming musician full to the brim with original folk-style compositions. The two combine in this creative individual; in fact, his one interest, music, fostered the other interest, history.
He has just released the final recording in a trilogy of music that seeks to represent Canada, titled Screendeath Summersong by Woodland Telegraph. Folk music blends with digital technology in this 14-tune CD.
Many of the lyrics tell stories of life today. It’s a kind of contemporary oral history that Lovegrove is familiar with, having perused the museum’s collection.
“We spend much of our waking lives on screens,” he noted. “There didn’t seem to be many songs about that – folk that blends with techno.”
“Sees the screens instead of their eyes,” are lyrics from the first track. Yeah, that’s got to resonate with working people who sit in front of their computers most of the day to earn the money to feed their families. Godscreen is another surprise example (spoiler alert here); it’s an essay in binary. Try “reading” the lyrics on the album notes.
Lovegrove has always been interested in music and played guitar from an early age, but his second career goal in history came later. When he was living in the Rockies he worked on his first landscape CD in the trilogy, Woodland Telegraph Sings Revival Hymns, a musical tour of the Rocky Mountains. In researching the history of the area, he stopped in at Alberta’s Canmore museum. It sparked an interest, particularly in the oral history tapes that tell the stories of the people. His second recording celebrated the Prairies, and tracks from both of these can be found at northernfolklore.com.
Later Lovegrove attended University of Victoria and trained in cultural resource management – he’s worked at the Coast museum seven years now, two of them full time as manager. Digital cataloguing of archives is one of his key goals. In the song Pixelate, he sings “What am I if not: / A box of pixelated / Bones in the end? When I die / My information lives on / Forever.”
This CD is produced and recorded by Lovegrove with Mike Cashin, who can be heard on percussion. Other artists from Vancouver and the Coast perform on it, including Chelsea Sleep, Anna Lumiere and Ian McClatchie. The startling cover image is by Meghan Hildebrand with graphics by Roger Handling.
The launch is on Friday, April 15 at the Roberts Creek Legion. The CD is available on iTunes and Bandcamp and is sold at Gaia’s Fair Trade and MELOmania for $15.
