“I am The Tallest Man on Earth. So tall I have a feeling that my funeral will be expensive, they’ll have to saw my body in half and put the two parts in separate graves. I guess some people will mourn the top part, some the bottom.”
Behind the name The Tallest Man On Earth is Kristian Matsson of Dalarna, Sweden. He plays guitar and banjo and released a self-titled 5-track EP, in Europe mid-year (on Gravitation), before his debut album Shallow Graves, which is to be released in Australia August 30th on Spunk Records/EMI.
Since the release of the album Kristian has toured the US and Europe, and is about to go on tour in Sweden again before returning to the US to open for Bon Iver in December. Apart from being one of the year’s most blogged-about folk records, reviews for the album have been tip top.
Here are a couple –
“Matsson’s melodies are remarkably pliant, and while it’s understandable to be skeptical of another skinny dude with a moustache, a guitar, and a worn-out copy of The Anthology of American Folk Music, the more time you invest in Shallow Graves, the more you’ll realize how unusually memorable it is. Ultimately, Shallow Graves transcends comparison—which is saying an awful lot, given the popularity of its prototype—and Matsson is a natural-born folksinger, earnest, clever, and comforting.” 8.3 Pitchfork
“think Clarence Ashley, Dock Boggs, and other assorted banjo-playing Appalachian-folk legends you might find on the Anthology of American Folk Music. The whole Shallow Grave LP (his debut, by the way) is absolutely outstanding” gorillavsbear
