At seven years old, Swiss artist-songwriter-lawyer-Renaissance-man MattO didn’t speak a lick of English. But when he brought home his recently purchased copies of “Lola” by The Kinks and “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” by The Beatles, he encountered the power of music to speak without words. His parents thought it odd, given the topics of the songs, but embraced his passion for music nonetheless. After years of training in classical guitar, he started a band to play local gigs, diving into the deeper soundscapes of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.
Eventually, life put his musical dreams on hiatus as he soared to success in commercial law. But around age forty, he realized that life is too short to live just one way. So with a passionate pivot, he launched a second career as a music producer, working alongside the likes of Jon Leidersdorff (Bruce Springsteen, Lakehouse Music Academy) to create tunes that found eager ears around the world. Now MattO is back in full force as a singer-songwriter, translating his precision contemplations on modern life into bite-size reflections in song. With two full-length albums under his belt (The Future of Your Past and Man from Yesterday), he’s preparing to release a third that dissects the complexity of modern life and its juxtaposition with our primitive past.
MattO’s poignant new single “The Angels Went Back To Heaven” considers the cost of living a rational life. Over a Springsteen-esque arrangement of driving drums, keys, and power chords, MattO laments over the persistence of fears and suffering, despite our insistence that we have an explanation for everything. “Who’s gonna dry the tears we cry and see us through times of trouble?” he exclaims as the song winds through powerful transformations into a tender final plea for humanity. Now that we’ve reasoned away any supernatural support for our suffering, how will we cope in the face of its persistence?
Ever the humble artist, MattO handed “The Angels Went Back To Heaven” to friend and director Marcelo Bumbica with the instruction, “Do with it as you please.” Miraculously, Bumbica generated an equally poignant interpretation of the song in film. Accepting MattO’s reluctance to appear in his own music videos, Bumbica cast the artist’s friends and family in a series of vignettes depicting relational woes in the context of modernity: a world of digital distractions, dizzying distances overcome while we struggle to connect in person. Threading through each scene, a plain-clothed guardian angel attempts to reconnect the characters and inject humanity into the hysteria. The video proposes a thoughtful response to MattO’s questions: though we’ve cast away our angels, we can revive them through kindness to one another.
Follow MattO:
