Sur Mon Dos

Like Manu Chao, Matjé is a musical voyager, who took his artist’s name from the Creole word ‘to write’. The 11 songs on his latest, Sur Mon Dos (On My Back) were inspired by his globe-trotting travels, and within the first half dozen numbers he flits from Northeast Brazil on the opening ‘Bahia’, an infectious slice of forró with a seafaring bounce, to Colombia on ‘Cumbia Fanée (feat Alain Debiossat)’, via the Antilles (‘Palabres’) and East Africa (‘Mitsio (feat Bi Ba)’, with the title track featuring vocals from Isla and Afro-Latin accordion. All these songs are infused with the happy/sad feel of Cape Verde, but rooted in Matjé’s native French chanson tradition.

Backed by distinguished musicians like Charles Giraud, whose clarinet underlines the melancholy ambience of ‘Roseaux’, and Zoufris Maracas’ drummer, François Causse, whose nimble percussion work is showcased in ‘Balayer’, Matjé and his guests sing and/or rap his evocative poetic texts. François Causse’s presence on six numbers is particularly germane: Matjé and Zoufris Maracas share the same manager. This album invokes the spirit of the Maracas’ splendid Bleu de Lune [a Top of the World album in Songlines June 2020, #158], but while Matjé’s songs have a nice lazy feel that conjures up an artist lying on his back (as the title suggests) and dreaming of tropical destinations, they don’t quite go that extra kilometre.