(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Matt Keating began by singing his existential malaise on the sidewalks of Boston, but launched his recording career after moving to New York.

The melancholy bard of Tell It To Yourself (Alias, 1993) had limited prospects, but at least he had a clear agenda: Don't Suffer In Silence. This gave rise to vignettes like Sanity In The Asylum, Show Me How, and A Little Talk, which could serve as sociological essays. His round but monotonous voice, however, did not particularly make him stand out.

With the same humble-but-precise arrangements and solipsistic approach to singer-songwriter material, the follow-up Scaryarea (Alias, 1994) delivers some livelier moments, from the Elvis Costello-style verve of Pull Some Strings to the garage-rave energy of Your Other Face. Abandoning a bit of his ascetic consistency, Keating also reaches Boxed Inn and Opportunist, in the spirit of Robyn Hitchcock’s whimsical folk-rock. He falls back into depressive habits at every turn, but this time there is, on one hand, the solemn folk of The Wrong God and Never Fit In, seemingly sung at attention to save him, and, on the other, the Neil Young influence hovering over Way To Go and A Naggin’ Feelin' when he flirts with suicidal thoughts. McHappiness, a Donovan-worthy whispery refrain over a delicate martial cadence, is almost a chart-ready song. Keating has matured especially in dramaturgical terms, perhaps because he has grasped the importance of leveraging the music.

Mary Lou Lord recorded his That Kind Of Girl, that appears on the EP Candy Valentine (Alias, 1996).

Killjoy (Alias, 1997) is a dark and introverted work that explores a crack between Leonard Cohen's intimacy and Neil Young's neurosis (Killjoy, Fruit You Can't Eat).

Tilt-A-Whirl (Hungry Ghost, 2001) is a transitional album. An impressive melodic hook in Man Overboard and elegant arrangements in On Closer Inspection and Float Away continue Keating's lonely journey.

Later albums include: Summer Night (Kealon, 2006), Quixotic (MRI, 2008), Between The Customers (Kealon, 2010), Wrong Way Home (Sojourn, 2012), This Perfect Crime (Janglewood, 2015).