The Loop : Matt Pond PA - Winter Songs EP

Matt Pond PA - Winter Songs EP (2005)

I have a confession : I got into Neutral Milk Hotel because of Matt Pond's cover of "In an Aeroplane Over the Sea" on this EP.

Hipster panel, I expect your call shortly.

When I first started working at The Blaze 1260, I felt I was "too busy" to be an actual DJ, so instead went straight for promotions. However, as it turns out, I still really liked music and talked about music a lot with our music director Albert. I was fascinated by the amount of music that would come across his desk. So fascinated in fact, that he invited myself and a few other people to come in and dig through his stash, take a handful and come back with opinions on if we should play it and leave a little sticky label on it with a description, recommended tracks and which tracks cursed (you're welcome FCC) Now that group of music-minded individuals is known as COTMA (Congregation of Taste Making Aficianados) and even have their own blog! (cotma.blogspot.com) At that point, I think we went simply by "Team Awesome".

I tore through my first round of music and went to Albert for more. He handed me a stackful and as I recall, he said something along the lines of "yeah, these are a little weird". I hardly recognized any of it, but accepted the challenge. I took my new stack in my book back and headed towards the MU. I remember sitting in the Schouler study (ya know, that room with the fireplace by Cereality) and putting on the Winter Songs EP. It immediately struck me with it's muted tones and the first track "Snow Day". Being a girl who had only lived in the desert, it strangely launched me into whatever perception it is I had of Winter. I hadn't really seen much of snow (or at least spent a good amount of time with it) but the romantic strumming felt like the holidays.

So much so, that he even took more polished, upbeat songs and added his signature static over them, including Neil Young's "Winterlong" and "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham and "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" by Richard and Linda Thompson. Oddly enough, the only original tunes by Matt were the three instrumental tracks "Snow Day", "Fall Two" and "Winter One". It gave me the wrong impression at first, which lead me to be unaware of his large catalog of work, including another one of my favorite records (and one who nearly made this cut) Emblems.

It wasn't until I really processed his cover of "In the Aeroplane over the Sea", that I was able to process this record. I started to listen to that song obsessively and upon googling the lyrics, found out that that TOO was a cover of one of indie rocks most beloved recluses. Matt does the song complete justice however, turning some of the more abrasive tones of the original track into beautiful instrumentation without changing much of the structure. It's finding the beauty in a messy song that finds the beauty in everything. It's quite beautiful.

At any rate, as Winter is now upon us, this record sets a nice soundtrack and paints a picture of the season, even for those of us who still don't quite understand it.

This is all I could find with any of the songs. Sorry it's slightly lame.