Like so many others in 2020, Matt Maltese found himself stuck at home and dreaming of an escape. Having first established himself as a songwriter with a knack for dry one liners and a keen eye for self-deprecation Maltese has spent the years since releasing 2018 debut Bad Contestant searching for something more like sincerity. A year later he released follow-up album Krystal and now comes third album Good Morning, It’s Now Tomorrow, his most genuine project to date. It’s an album filled with romance and light-hearted ruminations on both love and the future, as well as continuing his search for something bigger than normal life.
“A lot of this record is escapism,” he explains of the album, written and recorded between his London home and Echo Zoo studios on England’s south coast during the U.K.’s year-long lockdown. “I’ve had to find more meaning out of the small parts of life. I want this record to celebrate the theatre in all the small things. It’s so cheesy to say it, but I think life is best when you try to make the ordinary extraordinary.”
This sense of embracing positivity and romanticizing the everyday runs throughout Good Morning, It’s Now Tomorrow. It’s there in “Shoe,” self-described as a “wonky march for love,” in which Maltese, eulogizes a relationship as pivotal to both parties as a pair of your favorite boots. Similarly, on “Outrun The Bear Maltese,” ever the gentleman, offers himself up to a grizzly foe that’s chasing him and his partner through the woods. “The love songs in particular I think feel in hindsight like they’re me stepping outside of the present, touching on moments in the past or daydreaming what tomorrow might look like,” Maltese explains. “They’re everything I want and think love to be - too-romantic, genuine, strange, a little gross, silly, normal, imperfect, all at once.” In his quest to capture the intensity of the feelings we share each and every day, the album represents Maltese’s biggest step forward so far.
Understandably, for an album written entirely at home during a worldwide pandemic, some feelings of helplessness also crept into the writing process. Never is that more striking than on “Good Morning,” a breezy pop song studded with dark lyrics about witch hunts and armageddon. “It’s about the slow moving beast that moves everything forward,” Maltese says, reflecting on a rare moment the album dives into something like realism. “No matter how many people are dying and how much tragedy there is, society still moves forwards. I wanted to reflect on that and talk about how a lot of everyday life is about making peace with that powerlessness. There were a lot of moments last year of thinking, “Fuck, how do we change things and will these systems of power ever really change until it gets literally apocalyptic?” It’s a little bit of me saying I don’t know what I can do but I’ll think every day about how I can be a better part of this world.”
Where once he would have stared impending doom in the face and found a way to make fun of himself for basking in its darkness, now Maltese is more determined than ever to look to tomorrow and find a positive way forwards. “It’s a real coping record,” Maltese says of making his most optimistic work during “the worst period” of global unrest his lifetime. “The pandemic made me very aware of the small things and the important things. It made the past feel even further away which is why I think the album is so hopeful. It made me realize which relationships and connections are real and a true source of joy. It made me latch onto those things more than ever.”
Getting away from the character he created for himself on previous albums has led to a more grounded and content place for Maltese. “Oldest Trick In The Book,” a blissed out moment featuring Syrian-American folk artist Bedouine, typifies an artist who no longer feels the need to present as anything other than who he truly is. “Mystery,” meanwhile, captures a snapshot of his immediate world and the strangeness of the vast planet on which we all live. It’s a song that states the obvious in many ways, capturing the fact that nobody truly has a handle on how life works but trying to reach a place of being able to enjoy that lack of understanding. “In many ways this album is me simply being in awe of everything and confused but at peace,” Maltese says when summing up the album. “I never want to sound hopeless or like I get it, because I don’t. Life feels like a search but that’s the whole point.” Finally comfortable in life’s many uncomfortable positions, Good Morning, It’s Now Tomorrow is Matt Maltese admitting that he doesn’t have the answers he once thought he did and, most importantly, finding peace in knowing that none of us ever will.