Sweet Celebrates Life With Two New CDs

Power-pop maestro Matthew Sweet is returning to North American audiences
after a five-year hiatus between solo releases with two new albums. "Kimi Ga
Suki * Raifu," a 12-track album released last year in Japan, is due Sept. 7
on Superdeformed/RCAM Records. A separate album, "Living Things" will arrive
from the label Oct. 19.

Both albums -- the first all-new U.S. releases under Sweet's name since
1999's "In Reverse" (Volcano) -- were recorded in short order at the
artist's house in 2002. But "Kimi Ga Suki" was earmarked for Japanese-only
release, and the release of "Living Things" was delayed as well, due to
Sweet's promotional efforts with the Thorns, the group he formed with Pete
Droge and Shawn Mullins.

While the pair of albums will be released right after one another in the
United States, sonically they represent two very distinct aspects of Sweet's
work. "Kimi Ga Suki" has a raw, electric sound based around the raucous
drumming of collaborator Ric Menck, Sweet's bass and guitar work by Greg
Leisz and Television alum Richard Lloyd. The songs were written in about a
week and recorded without demos, a stripped-down method of album-making that
the artist found exciting.

"That process turned out to be really satisfying and fun for me," Sweet
tells Billboard.com. "As hard as it was to accept it the album was done
[without extensive studio tinkering], at least I made a record that I can
say is a record, out of my house."

"Living Things" followed a similarly organic path to creation, its songs
having been written while Sweet was staying with Droge and Mullins at a
ranch in Santa Ynez, Calif., working on Thorns material. Again, Sweet and
Menck recorded the basic tracks at the former's home. But then Sweet and
Leisz added more layers of extensive instrumentation -- all acoustic -- with
the help of a pop iconoclast Van Dyke Parks.

A meeting at Brian Wilson's surprise 60th birthday led to the collaboration
with former Beach Boys consort and Sweet's idol Parks, who ended up adding
accordion, organ and piano to the album's 11 lush tracks. Sweet says
building that album was a very organic process, and a good deal of the final
material on "Living Things" is culled from improvisational first takes.

"My interest at this point is how to break the mold," he says. "I wanna do
unbridled, cool, weird things when I feel like it. That's the exciting thing
to me about these records -- they represent that I can do whatever."

Sweet hopes his freedom from having a major-label deal, coupled with his
newfound ability to make full-sounding records at home, will lead to a new
phase in his career.

"I'd like to get to a point where I could be more like I was a painter or a
potter," he says, "where I just make my thing and I put it out, and it
doesn't have to be everyone in the world that wants it, you know? If enough
people want it that I can survive and actually make money from it, I'd be
happy."

The artist has three Japanese tour dates on his docket -- Aug. 21 and 23 in
Tokyo and Aug. 24 in Osaka -- and he plans to tour North America in support
of the two new releases starting in October.

-- Troy Carpenter, N.Y.