I don’t normally do this but I thought this was a cool way to introduce Jonah and assist in promoting OneLineDrawing without going way back. Hopefully a formal interview and singular reviews of the CDs mentioned below will be on their way in the near future, but for now, especially if you got into Far; you’re missing on on some beautiful music if you don’t take the opportunity to check this out. Here’s an excerpt from the CDnow.com Newsletter:
Former Far Singer Jonah Matranga Expands Solo Career
Dec 17, 1999, 3:25 pm PT
Following the unexpected grassroots success of former Far singer Jonah Matranga’s Sketchy E.P. #1, a oollection of home recordings originally released online earlier this year and later issued by Crank! Records, the Sacramento-based musician has just released a follow-up, titled Sketchy E.P. #2.
The music and other info about Matranga’s blossoming solo career, plus info about Far, which is currently on hiatus, can be found at www.onelinedrawing.com. The EPs are also available at Matranga’s live appearances, which are listed at the Web site.
“It’s been a really weird, incredible, humbling year,” saysMatranga. “It all started with a couple of little messageboards on my site. I was just basically sitting at homewriting songs and wondering, and all these people startedposting and wanting to hear what was going on. I reallymessed around with a lot of ideas I’ve had for years –playing living rooms, hand-packaging music, just fucking with artist/audience boundaries in a good way.”
Matranga is also set to record some songs for ImmortalRecords — Far’s former label and now a subsidiary of Virgin Music — under what Matranga calls a “glorified demo deal,” for possible use down the road.
Far recorded two albums for Immortal/Epic, 1996’s Tin Cans With Strings To You and 1998’s Water & Solutions, plus a series of seven-inch singles and self-released cassettes. A Far rarities album is being considered, says Matranga.
– written by Kevin Raub and Troy J. Augusto
