The guitarist, singer, and songwriter Matt Andersen began his career in the music world in 2002 as part of the band Flat Top, and debuted as a solo artist five years later with the album "Second Time Around".
With a powerful and highly expressive voice, the Canadian musician, originally from Perth-Andover (a village of about two thousand inhabitants located in the province of New Brunswick), masterfully blends abundant and captivating doses of blues, soul, R&B, folk, and Americana in the overall forty-nine minutes of his new album, "The Big Bottle Of Joy", released in March 2023.
The twelve tracks on the album are composed by Andersen in collaboration with other artists, except for the country-tinged song "Aurora" (written by Terra Spencer, also Canadian from Windsor, Nova Scotia), the poignant ballad "Only An Island" (composed by Carleton Stone, Breagh MacKinnon, Dylan Guthro, the Canadian trio known as Port Cities) showcasing Matt Andersen's vocal prowess and the excellent keyboard work by Chris Kirby, and the sinuous "Hands Of Time". The latter song belongs to the portfolio of the London duo Groove Armada (featured on their 2003 album "Lovebox"), and was composed with the support of Richie Havens, and is also part of the soundtrack of the 2004 film Collateral, directed by Michael Mann and starring, among others, Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, and Mark Ruffalo.