Matthew E. White’s Big Inner

Matthew E. White’s recently-released Big Inner is a unique and wonderful set of songs, and is garnering praise for the Richmond-based musician from Rolling Stone and Pitchfork: Inner is certainly southern, it’s definitely other, and the songs collectively tell the kind of story that always appealed to Newman, about painfully human creatures yearning for spiritual […]

August 26, 2012; 8:06 AM • by Fan of the Fan

Matthew E. White’s recently-released Big Inner is a unique and wonderful set of songs, and is garnering praise for the Richmond-based musician from Rolling Stone and Pitchfork:

Inner is certainly southern, it’s definitely other, and the songs collectively tell the kind of story that always appealed to Newman, about painfully human creatures yearning for spiritual transcendence and finding that their own flawed, flesh-and-blood selves always seem to get in the way. But where Newman was among the most literary of the late-60s/early-70s post-Dylan generation of singer-songwriters, White’s primary mode of expression on Inner is musical. With his background in jazz arranging and natural grasp of American roots music, the native Virginian has positioned himself at the head of a corps of young and veteran musicians– including Bon Iver‘s Reggie Pace, Phil Cook of Megafaun, and David Hood– determined to revive long-lost record-making traditions in the service of re-imagining psychedelic music as gospel hymns.