When Capetonian singer-songwriter Matthew Mole released his debut album, The Home We Built, ten years ago he had no idea that his career was about to explode, and he was about to become one of the most critically acclaimed pop stars in South Africa.
Debuting at the top of the iTunes SA Chart in 2013, the album’s core themes of upliftment and love resonate just as deeply today as they did when it was first released. “I think that because it was a debut album full of songs that I had written over the period of a few years prior to actually recording the official versions of the songs,” Matthew explains.
“I was able to be comfortable in the studio when we put the album together and really focus on being intentional about the feeling of the album as a whole. As well as the fact that these were all songs that I had written with no specific plan to show them to the world, they were really just for me. I would love to think that there’s some sort of naivety and authenticity to that, that a person is able to connect with in a meaningful way,” he continues.
To celebrate the milestone anniversary of ten years of The Home We Built, Matthew selected four songs (“Take Yours, I’ll Take Mine”, “Autumn”, “Have I Told You” and “The Wedding Song”) that he has reimagined acoustically for his fanbase explaining, “I wanted to take four songs that I have noticed connected with people, and try to reimagine them in their simplest form.”
The four acoustic tracks are:
- “Take Yours, I’ll Take Mine” – This song has always meant a lot to me and I’m always overwhelmed by the way people have connected with it. It was sort of the spearhead of the album and I couldn’t release this EP without throwing down a different version of it.
- “Autumn” – I always imagined this song being performed totally stripped down, sort of like I used to play it when I first started playing live shows. It’s never been heard with this kind of interpretation.
- “Have I Told You” – I enjoy the light-heartedness of this song and the way that it lifts the mood of the collective EP. Not quite as lyrically metaphorical as the other three songs, it brings the four songs together as a fun group!
- “The Wedding Song” – I always wanted this song to be heard solely as a guitar and vocal. We added quite a bit more than that on the original album version, which I love! But the EP version is totally stripped down, the way I always planned for it.
The acoustic EP’s artwork is also noteworthy and features snapshots of Matthew and his closest friends and family in a compact collage. “The few years surrounding the release of “The Home We Built” are such special memories,” Matthew reminisces. “I wanted to add as many of them [pictures] to the artwork as I possibly could. I have such a specific picture in my mind of the beautiful time that it was, so I wanted the artwork to reflect that and bring the feeling back to that time.”
Listen to the acoustic EP below and read more music news here.
