WHAT MATTERS/POCHETTE GATEFOLD

Description

"More than anything, I wanted to make a generous, useful album," says Ben Folds. "I want you to finish this record with something you didn't have at the beginning." Indeed, Folds' new masterful collection, What Matters Most, is less a statement than an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those hurt and bewildered by a world that seems increasingly incoherent each day. Recorded in East Nashville with co-producer Joe Pisapia, this album marks Folds' first new studio release in eight years, and it is a bold, timely, and cinematic work that equally explores the tragic and the absurd while addressing hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective. The songs here are bittersweet, sometimes hilarious, but often tinged with a subtle sense of nostalgia and anxiety: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate sinks into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unfolds in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful record that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and hidden promises in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.