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Disappearances

by Matthew Connor

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scarlet4oclock In this album, Mr. Matthew Connor's voice is equal amounts of haunting and soothing like a siren lulling a ship to wreck, paired all too well with his artfully crafted storytelling and melodies. It's hard not to be cast adrift with the individuals Mr. Connor croons about.

12/10 highly recommend this siren call (I've already been swept away in the current) Favorite track: Desaparecido.
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1.
Saw something strange last night, I don’t know what it was Maybe some trick of the light or some kind of fairy dust You were standing right next to me, I can’t say if you caught it, too Your eyes went straight back in your skull like they’ve been known to do Ooh, heat lightning Someone’s disappeared again and now they’re dragging the reservoir The crowds have started circling like flies in the abattoir Spirit photography on a closed circuit TV screen A blast of snow and static, that’s the last he was ever seen Ooh, heat lightning He’s a bright white boy with bright white teeth so this time the reporters came Heat lightning rushing through the streets, the flashbulbs all aflame “He wouldn’t just leave the cat behind,” said the lady from next door And the missing posters watch the scene, impassive evermore Ooh, heat lightning Do you want to come upstairs? My roommate’s never home I swear I’ve never been so scared, I can’t bear to be alone The helicopters throbbing, God, it sounds like the living end I just need to get some sleep, I could really use a friend The graffiti in the underpass — “Your soul will see the wind” I just need to get some sleep, I could really use a friend I could really use a friend I could really use a friend
2.
Marie’s gone missing, didn’t show for her shift Left the Volvo perched on a steep snowdrift Pointed due north when she blinked off the grid And everyone’s still talkin’ ’bout what Jennifer did Do you know where your mother hides the brandy? Do you know what goes on behind the trees? Do you know how to go a little crazy? Baby, please... Climb down, climb down from the window We’re all meeting by the bend in the stream Heard the search party screaming in the shadows Baby, maybe it was just a dream Nora brought the Moonlight in Vermont Lila’s voice drops every time she takes a call Heard she’s going with a guy from two towns over That’s not all, that’s not all Climb down, climb down from the rafters And lie with me here on the ground The dogs are circling the farmhouse now They’re breathing down our necks, don’t make a sound Do you want for the night to last forever? Do you want to wrap yourself around the moon? Do you want to maybe run away together? Baby, soon… Marie’s gone missing, left a note on the fridge Daddy, don’t wait up for me Daddy, don’t wait up for me Daddy, don’t wait up for me Daddy, don’t wait up for me
3.
Full dark descended and the snow wasn’t far behind Five o’clock on the first of December, 1949 With a wave of the porter the Greyhound was rolling Route 7 South, from St. Alban’s to Bennington A soul in every seat Fingers of ash and elm brushed the window Where a soldier was leaning, his coat for a pillow Sleeping just as sound as if beneath an eiderdown Do you think he was dreaming or was it just black? Was he seeing his sweetheart? Was he bringing her back? Pearl’s run off to the general store And nobody’s seen her no more Nobody’s seen her no more With the heat from the bodies, the light from the lanterns The Greyhound was glowing, a rumbling aquarium Drifting through the dark The chatter fell silent when all of a sudden The depot appeared and loomed like a phantom The soldier’s seat was bare, only an open timetable there The bleary-eyed passengers couldn’t believe The driver exclaimed, “It’s the damnedest thing! I swear there was a man there before.” And nobody’s seen him no more Nobody’s seen him no more James Tedford was elderly by some accounts And by some he was just back from the war I’ve seen his last name spelled three different ways But I guess it don't matter much anymore If no one records the details of a life Can you tell me then what’s it all for?
4.
Driftwood 04:01
We got eyes on the smokestack of the sugar mill There was movement for a moment then suddenly still Is there still someone waiting for you? We got a roof overhead and yet the damp gets in The snoring chorus comes apart when Louie’s engine starts to spin I want to see it coming I want to look it in the eye I want to know what hit me I want to blow a kiss goodbye If this mist ever lifts we’ll row the boat ashore Steady as the nurse’s footsteps in the corridor In the dark we can be all alone That woman came again today, oh what’s her name again? She was singing songs from long ago, I don’t know where or when I want to see it coming I want to look it in the eye I want to know what hit me I want to blow a kiss goodbye
5.
Desaparecido 04:53
Estoy buscando a mi marido desaparecido? Desaparecido… Well, he’s six feet tall though he’d tell you six-one His hands are raw from the fields and the sun And he’s got a smile that can knock you flat He’s always in a cowboy hat And he’s got my name tattooed on his arm He tells me I’m his good luck charm Have you seen him? Have you seen him? Let me know if you see him And I pray that tonight he is safe That wherever he is, he is among friends And I pray, I pray they haven’t been chased That they haven’t been scattered to the winds Desaparecido There’s a little birthmark across his right hip And it’s just the size of a fingertip And I trace it every single day In an absentminded kind of way There’s a patch on his chin where the beard won’t grow in And the hint of a scar just under the skin Have you seen him? Have you seen him? Please, God, have you seen him? And I pray that tonight he is safe That wherever he is, he is among friends And I pray, I pray they haven’t been chased That they haven’t been scattered to the winds Nobody vanishes into thin air Somebody knows why and somebody knows where The hills, the rocks, the rivers, the sands I just want to know The boneyard of the borderlands I just want to know The holding cell, the shelter floor I just want to know Or naked in a metal drawer I just want to know Desaparecido Desaparecido Desaparecido
6.
Lose this number We don’t know each other anymore Whatever that was, that was before And now it’s done Oceans crashing Galaxies collapsing in the hum From here to wherever you’re calling from Lose this number I gotta run What have they been telling you? Where have those flowers gone? When the world is cleaved in two Whose side will you be on? Rome is burning Even so, it’s home and here I’ll stay You’re hoping the flames won’t spread your way I’m sure you’ll be fine How with this rage? I’ve worked my fingers raw What have you done? If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone Lose this number I’m sure you’ll be fine What have they been telling you? Where have those flowers gone? When the world is cleaved in two Whose side will you be on? When they come for me, and they’re going to come Don’t you come running to my aid When they come for me, and they’re going to come Don’t you come running to my aid Oh, when they come for me, and they’re going to come Don’t you come running to my aid I’ll be gone by then, long gone by then Long gone, long gone So long...
7.
He was gone before the dust had even settled He was gone before the paint was even dry He was gone before the crib had been assembled Some men just don’t know how to say goodbye And I wonder if I inherited his stature You know Mama was so short and frail And I wonder if he found what he was after When he left us for the sawdust trail There’s a frame on the wall without a photo There’s a silence at the center of the town There were stray dogs dancing in the meadow On the day they finally tore the foundry down I was happy to abandon all that history To see it swallowed by the swale No, there wasn’t anybody left to miss me When I set out on the sawdust trail On my way from Walhalla to Bear Wallow I saw a man who glistened just like a mirage He waded out into the water and I followed The bracken and the brush our camouflage And he led me by the hand and the sinews And his hair hung in his eyes like a veil And we found a rented room to sink into Such stunning views along the sawdust trail He was gone before the dusty light of morning He was gone before the sweat had lost its sheen He was gone before the memories finished forming I’ve forgotten if his eyes were grey or green So I headed north and I stopped at Sunset Diner As the drizzle on the windshield turned to hail Thought I recognized the man behind the counter The mind plays tricks along the sawdust trail Now I got a chain of ghosts I drag behind me And nobody here knows my name Well, I fell into a job down in the valley Oh, that always seems to be the way But you gotta put the work in while you’re able You gotta bring the hammer to the nail “Sorry” don’t put food on the table And we’re all starving on the sawdust trail
8.
Jennifer 05:28
Last I heard she was going by Jennifer But who knows who she is now Some days I’m sure I must have conjured her From whole cloth, somehow, somehow The trail went cold on the warehouse scene Some policemen came and picked her bedroom clean There were blurry photographs on the evening news And whispers in the halls of whereabouts and clues And now a hangup call can turn my dreams bizarre Feeling someone’s stare on a subway car I did everything I could, I think that I did She had an exit plan, she hit a desperate skid We were only boys back in Baltimore We were only girls on the run We kissed and the horizon would melt into the floor Oh, Jennifer, tell me what you’ve done The lines went down and the air was sweet A swirling storm in the summer heat We danced out on the lawn while limbs hit the ground The tethered world spun loose when Jennifer was around She would change her name with the seasons But she’s forever Jennifer to me Whatever she has done I'm sure she had her reasons I hope she made it far and made it free Her mother still calls her Jeremy
9.
The radio’s just static though I thought I heard a song There’s nothing here but headlights, I think we should move along Thunder on the blacktop and across the mountain’s face We got matches for the cigarettes, a flashlight just in case And he’s never, never, never going to find me He’s never, never, never going to find me here You did all the driving so I’ll take the couch tonight I can’t sleep here in the country, there’s no noise and there’s no light Back home my building rumbled like the belly of a boar You hear secrets through the ceilings when you live on the first floor And he’s never, never, never going to find me He’s never, never, never going to find me here We still got half a tank, can we take it all the way? We still got half a tank, can you take me all the way? (Can you take me all the way? Can you take me all the way? Can you take me all the way? Can you take me all the way?) He’s never, never, never going to find me He’s never, never, never going to find me He’s never, never, never going to find me He’s never, never, never going to find me now
10.
All my sisters are dancing upstairs You can listen to their laughter through the night Hear them planning their summer affairs While outside the moths are diving in shallow pools of light A sleeping bag in the crawlspace And smoke blown in a ring You’d better call Marie She’s missing everything We are pushing a hundred down the shore Your corsage is rusting in a paper cup Kick my heels off and leave them by the door The horses on the stairs always wake Mother up Some nights come in so clearly Like songs on a radio Some nights get blown to smithereens Who knows where all those pieces go? I’ll meet you at the top of the ferris wheel while Dreamland crumbles below Everything that you remember is as good as real But you can’t take it with you when you go All my sisters are still dancing, though the song is softer now And that old house has since been razed to the ground You’re still winding through my memories and breaking like a bough I’m the last of the immortal girls around I’ll meet you at the top of the ferris wheel while Dreamland crumbles below Everything that you remember is as good as real But you can’t take it with you when you go And I don’t know if my soul will see the wind I just hope that I see you again

about

Places of disappearance are pervaded by a sense of mystery and melancholy. Think of moonlight shivering over stalks of wheat. Trees in the forest crosshatching into new unreadable black metal band logos. Floorboards in an old house weeping in the most abandoned keys. This is the kind of scenery that Matthew Connor’s new album, Disappearances, plants itself in, the realm where one can cross over from the missing to the gone. Every song on the record is a story of someone parting the curtain of reality and slipping behind it; some of the disappeared are runaways, some have been taken, some have been swallowed up by darkness without evidence or explanation, but each missing person opens up a mystical emptiness in the place they’ve left behind and in the people who still live there. 

“Someone’s disappeared again / and now they’re dragging the reservoir,” Connor sings on the opener “Heat Lightning”; his Scott Walker-esque baritone thrums against the steady heartbeat of a bass drum and a guitar ruminating somewhere between country and old rock and roll but never fully giving into either. Connor plays in the shadows of both genres throughout the record—think Chris Isaak if he really disappeared into the Black Lodge just like his character in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. In fact, Connor’s work on Disappearances is more than a little Lynchian, particularly in the mode of Peaks and Mulholland Dr.; his songs thrill and despair at the impossibility of knowing someone completely, the missing pieces in our images of other people, especially since those images are subject to constant erosion. “He was gone before the memories finished forming / I’ve forgotten if his eyes were grey or green” goes a lyric in “Sawdust Trail,” the narrator attempting to pin down the last remaining details of a phantomic lover that rises from a lake. 

The real keeps bending into the surreal in this way over the course of Disappearances, people wandering so far from home and so deeply into themselves that they no longer recognize the world around them. Bridges and codas open like trapdoors in the songs. The percussion can sound like some stumbling through a field crunching dead leaves underfoot, or like a riding crop sounding in the distance. It can also crackle like an old record, or rather like a sample of an old record you might hear creaking its way through a Portishead song; on “Lose This Number,” the first single from the record, such a drum figure stutters through the track and pulses against thick spiderwebs of guitar, as Connor’s voice sings of the loneliness and the feelings of disappearance that accompany a friend’s betrayal: “When they come for me / and they’re going to come / don’t you come running to my aid.”

Connor’s keen observations of the ghostly trails people leave behind is what binds the songs on Disappearances together, even when the arrangements are crisp and spangled as a Nudie suit, as they are on “Desaparecido,” a legitimate country ballad that builds and builds until it’s suddenly a political song for Linda Ronstadt to sing, complete with choir. But the album is also capable of the stillness of a garden at night, beauty shrouded and complicated by the dark. “Driftwood” is one of the most gorgeous moments on the album for this very reason, the pale light of Connor’s falsetto sinking into a coursing riverbed of strings and guitar, his narrator wanting to be fully aware of the moment before their disappearance—or possibly even their death—“I want to see it coming / I want to look it in the eye / I want to know what hit me / I want to blow a kiss goodbye.” After Connor stops singing, the strings and guitars coil into a vortex that the song disappears down. And just like that, it’s gone.

—Ivy Nelson

credits

released October 21, 2022

Written by Matthew Connor.
Produced by Matthew Connor & Jeremy Page.
Mixed by Jeremy Page.
Mastered by Kevin Blackler at Blackler Mastering.

Matthew Connor: vocals, guitars, keys, clarinet, samples & programming
Jeremy Page: guitars, bass, keys, additional drums & percussion
Andy Bauer: drums, vibraphone
Lexi Havlin: lead guitar
Karen Sarkisian: pedal steel

Will Stratton: acoustic guitar on “Don’t Wait Up.”
Blake Cowan (Wickerbird): backing vocals on “Don’t Wait Up.”

Strings arranged and conducted by Matthew Connor.
Strings recorded and engineered by Vince Chiarito at Hive Mind Recording.
Violins: Jonathan Block, Megan Hilands, Tina Clara Lee
Violas: Lesley Hogg, Beth Holub

“Desaparecido” choir: Andy Bauer, Geena Davis, Kendra Morris, Joe Stratton

Cover photo by Karla Clute.

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Matthew Connor Boston, Massachusetts

Matthew Connor is a crooner for the 21st century, writing heart-wrenching songs that combine the windswept ideals of classic American balladry with stark depictions of modern-day alienation. The Boston-based Connor has a haunting voice that conjures ghosts of past heartbreaks, and he pairs it with spectral guitars that recall country tearjerkers and alt-pop brooding.

—Maura Johnston
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