Matt Skinner

Ladies and Gentlemen, the “The Nighthawk Affair” has landed! It’s been seven long years since Matt Skinner released a new album, and as we’ve found, the wait has been quite worthwhile. Sharpened to a fine edge by night after night of playing for keeps, Skinner has brought forth a body of work that is a voyage through the treacherous shades and shadows of life, love, pleasure and pain. Like the flash of a knife in a dark alley or a sudden crack of thunder, “The Nighthawk Affair” makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end as you beg and plead for mercy cowering in the void. Armed with a cultivated tenor voice, smooth and powerful like good tequila, and guitars worn through from way too much ride, Skinner paints mind-filling word pictures with spellbinding detail, written as if the ink were his own lifeblood and his instrument his ethos. “The Nighthawk Affair” begins with a heart-wrenching ballad, “Ashes to Ashes,” a song about a young man’s journey of torment and rebuilding after the fall. Later, the artist takes the listener to the world where the things you wish you’d said and didn’t, the things you did say but shouldn’t have, and the uncomfortable silence between a man and a woman too alike to walk the same path in “Lost in Translation.” Showing also his candid sense of humor, “Love and 3 Chord Blues” is a spirited finger-style blues number about a young man who has grown wary and even a little cynical after having been raked over the coals by a beautiful girl and getting mugged in a dark alley behind a back-street bar in Mexico. “Never Gonna Go Back Home” is a Western Swing influenced tune about a Fandango-styled road-trip in the wilds of West Texas. According to Skinner the song was begun on a picnic table in Marfa near the Mystery Lights viewing area and finished on an airplane ride from New Orleans to Jacksonville. “The Nighthawk Affair” also has influence from Skinner’s travels in Central America where upon what he thought was a safe return, a colleague informed him that he thought Skinner needed to go see a currandera to get rid of a curse someone had put on him. Born from this experience is the fearfully haunting song, “Somebody Get the Witch!” It’s as if you yourself are on the streets of Panama City and can feel the heavy, humid air and taste the sweet fruit of original sin. Finally, the album finishes with a beginning. “Leaving Town” is an echo of the life of the artist and is written as a conversation between two people, one in search of wild and unsettled new horizons and the other content with the stability afforded her in the small town of her youth. She sings faintly along with him until the end where he embarks on his path of uncertainty and fulfillment while she’s left to rebuild from the ashes. Also included on “The Nighthawk Affair” are two songs covered regularly by Matt in his live shows. One such tune is the ever-powerful “If I Needed You,” which is sung as a brilliant duet with his traveling friend and singing partner, Amanda Brown, in which they pay tribute to the late great Townes Van Zandt. “The Nighthawk Affair” is a magnificent collection of stories and songs wrought from a coyote-like existence living by blood and guts by one’s wits and artistic integrity. One man’s inexperience is another man’s past, and Skinner has captured his stories in song and presented them with an all-star cast of musicians from his neighborhood in Austin, Texas, and put you the listener into the driver’s seat with a front row view of the world as only seen through his keen eyes.Find out more at www.myspace.com/mattskinnermusic and purchase “The Nighthawk Affair” and other Matt Skinner merchandise at www.lonestarmusic.com or download singles or the entire album at OurTracks.com.