One Line Drawing - Visitor

  by Mark Rowland

published: 24 / 5 / 2002

Label: Jade Tree
Format: CD

intro

Stripped down, but impressive folk solo project debut from Jonah Matranga, who also fronts emo group, New End Original

Onelinedrawing is the solo project of Jonah Matranga, the amazing singer that once fronted the late, great Far, the band that put out 'Water and Solutions', a perfect cross of emo and Deftones style nu-metal. Matranga is also the current frontman of New End Original, one of the better emo bands around at the moment. The thing that has come to the foreground most about Jonah over the last five or six years, however, is his brilliant songwriting, which is what Onelinedrawing is all about. Having abandoned major labels for good after his experience with Far, Matranga takes a more personal and less business like approach to the recording of his albums, recording at home instead of at studios, and addressing his fans in the inlay. While former Far bandmate Shaun Lopez has signed to Fred Durst's Flawless label with his band The Revolution Smile, Jonah is quite happy playing low-key gigs, where interaction with fans is a lot easier. This element comes through on 'Visitor' in a big way. Pretty much the only person that plays on the album is Jonah Matranga, plus his drum machine which, shaped like R2D2 from 'Star Wars', is listed as Artoo in the album's credits. As a result, what we get is eleven, stripped down, fantastic songs. There isn't really a bad song on this album. The gentle and emotional 'Um...' sets the basic tone for the album, folky, but with a large dose of emo thrown in for good measure. It is not , however, a depressed or negative album by any means. 'Bitte Ein Kuss' is an uptempo, electronic tinged folk song that doesn't take itself too seriously, while 'Smile' does exactly what it says on the tin, with even a comical 'solo' from Artoo. Across 'Visitor', Matranga tackles many different aspects of relationships. 'But It was Close' seems to face up to relationship trust problems, while 'Perfect Pair' works on a more positive level, on the feelings of completeness that is provided by someone in Matranga's life. The most emotional and best song on the album however, is 'Yr Letter', a song about being dumped that is very hard not to relate to, as a result of the amount of soul that has been put into it . The album ends in a similar way to how it begins- with the gentle 'Sixes', but with a piano supporting Jonah's acoustic guitar. Fans of Matranga's other material should already be excited about this release. This is just as good, if not better, than the albums produced with his other bands. For those of you out there who are unfamiliar with Jonah Matranga's work, but like a good song in it's purest form, it's worth checking out 'Visitor'.

Track Listing:-