Matt Johnson has predominantly used the name The The for his solo music but also for what has intermittently been a conventional group format. Currently, it is a group again and is about to release its first new album in a quarter century. Over the years The The has accommodated a fluid collective of musicians, briefly or for the longer term, some even returning. Johnson himself has been producing music since 1979 and has subsequently been known for embracing multi-media formats that have encompassed music, artwork, and high-concept visuals for his albums, notably with: Soul Mining (1983), Infected (1986), Mind Bomb (1989) and Dusk (1993). These parallel design concepts have usually been a way of enhancing the intense, personal and global, lyrical content for the songs which Matt has become synonymous with. This intensity has also been further enhanced by the usually angst-ridden voice, expressing his disdain or paranoia on global issues, contrasted by a gentle or brooding tone in his more personal or solipsist songs.
Within the organic and flexible The The umbrella there has always been an omnipresence of contrasts and opposites, variables and oscillations. However, for its large devoted following, the musical output over the last 45 years has been somewhat modest. Infrequent periods of resonant artistic activity and touring have contrasted with lengthy periods of silence. Including the first album Burning Blue Soul in 1981 (originally released under the Matt Johnson name) and the last album of new songs, Naked Self in 2000, there were just six official The The album releases of original songs bookending this period. For devotees, the anticipation of a new product, be it in the form of a standalone download single or multi-disciplinary triple album release, has therefore only increased anticipation for an official new The The album. Now the wait is finally over with the release of the new album Ensoulment, a collection of twelve new songs, and a world tour to follow that already began in the UK at the end of August.
Side Projects and the Variations of Creative Inertia
For those who wondered how such a conscientiously resonant artist could go nearly 25 years without a new official album release, after the (in retrospect) ‘prolific period’ from 1981-1995, the roots of the lengthy omission of new The The product seemed to be sowed when Matt Johnson moved to New York in the mid-1990s. The 1995 release Hanky Panky was a collection of musical reinterpretations of songs by legendary country musician Hank Williams but received mixed reviews from critics, although the album and single, I Saw the Light, achieved modest commercial success in the UK. This was also meant to be the first of many The The albums covering the work of iconic musicians, but no projects of this nature have since come to fruition.
Subsequently, Matt Johnson planned a New York trilogy of albums, beginning with 1997’s Gun Sluts, but this was rejected by the record company Sony and meant the 2000 release of Naked Self, the second in the planned trilogy, was the first release of new material since Dusk in 1993. An intriguing but accessible stripped-down acoustic affair, it had also been rejected by Sony a year earlier before the album was released on Interscope, Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records imprint. A third recording, Karmic Gravity (circa 2000) also remains unreleased but Matt still hopes to reunite all three albums for release at some point.
After the 2002 The The retrospective compilation 45RPM (including two new songs), and an appearance in June that year at London’s Royal Festival Hall as guests of David Bowie (a fan of The The who was curating the annual Meltdown festival that year), and the last live performance by The The for sixteen years, Matt seemed to disappear from public view completely. His official website was regularly updated, including the FAQ section, but there was no announcement of new material. In 2007, a download single called Mrs Mac was meant to be followed by a covers album called The End of the Day but this would not see release for another ten years.
With distribution through Matt’s own Cineola label, The The would intermittently release music in the form of film soundtracks where, despite the absence of his words and singing, Matt would create ambient music for his film director brother Gerard Johnson’s films: Tony (2009), Hyena (2014) and Muscle (2019). He also provided the soundtrack to Moonbug (2010) by Nichola Bruce, the acclaimed British avant-garde film director and artist. Matt said he had enjoyed this experimentation in the studio, interpreting the film director’s vision, and having no pressure of writing lyrics or being judged or critiqued.
Meanwhile, inspired by a John Tottenham collection of poems brought to his attention by JG Thirlwell (AKA Foetus), a friend and sometime The The collaborator, Matt collaborated on a documentary film called The Inertia Variations, directed by his former partner Johanna St Michaels. This deep contemplation on expectation and procrastination inspired the film in which we are given access to Johnson’s otherwise private world and his creative process. Matt is also seen challenging the contemporary political landscape via his own 12-hour live shortwave radio broadcast on the day of the 2015 UK General Election. More poignantly, it illustrates how bereavement in his family (his mother and two brothers) found expression in the form of songs. The Inertia Variations signalled a return to The The activity through the attempt to write and record an original new song with vocals. At the end of the film, Matt was seen performing in his home studio this new The The song, We Can’t Stop What’s Coming, written in tribute to his recently deceased brother Andrew, and admitted it was the first time he had sung in many years, finding the experience very enjoyable and emotional. The song was also significant for the contributions from previous The The members Zeke Manyika (Soul Mining/Infected era) and Johnny Marr (Mind Bomb/Dusk era) again, and was released as a 7-inch vinyl record on 22nd April 2017 for Record Store Day in the UK, while The Inertia Variations documentary premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2017.
Radio Cineola Trilogy and Comeback Special Tour
In September 2017, it was announced that The The would be touring in 2018 for the first time in sixteen years, the news coming after the October 2017 release of a new limited-edition box set, Radio Cineola Trilogy, featuring three albums —The End of the Day (interpretations of a selection of The The songs from various singers), The Inertia Variations (Matt narrating John Tottenham’s epic poetic cycle), and Midnight to Midnight (interviews and soundscapes edited from his 12-hour UK Election Day Radio Cineola shortwave broadcast alongside an electronic score from The Inertia Variations documentary). Matt commented on the project as being a fruition of what he had wanted The The to be from the outset. As individual members were allowed to come and go, so was the approach to using mixed media, going off in various tangents to do something unusual, original and creative.
At the end of May 2018 The The finally returned to the stage and initially played a few low-key warm up dates in the UK, followed in early June by two dates in Europe, at the Heartland Festival in Denmark, and then Stockholm for what was a very poignant night for Matt as he started the evening by telling the crowd the sad news that his father had passed that morning. The following concert would be at London’s Royal Albert Hall on 5th June, in his home town. This performance would be captured and released as a live album and DVD in 2021 called The Comeback Special, and directed by Tim Pope, who had worked with Matt on videos for the Infected album and also featured in The Inertia Variations documentary. This would be the first of three concerts in London on simultaneous days, with concerts following at the Brixton Academy and Troxy venues. The The would play more dates on the tour in Ireland in July and back to the UK in September before eight dates in North America at the end of September. The band for the tour featured previous members James Eller on bass, DC Collard on keyboards, and Earl Harvin on drums, with new member Barrie Cadogan on guitar. Matt would subsequently remark on this tour as being the most enjoyable he had done, particularly in the warm reception from the audiences.
In 2019, Matt extrapolated his vast archive and released a 1979 recording of early songs called See Without Being Seen, initially on cassette only, followed later by a CD release with three extra tracks. In 2020 he released I Want 2 B U for Record Store Day and in 2023 $1 ONE VOTE! continued the series of limited edition 7-inch vinyl The The releases in recent years that began in 2017 with We Can’t Stop What’s Coming. Of these standalone single releases, Matt said they had reignited his creative process, saying on his website, The last tour, the singles, the soundtracks have finally brought me to a place where I can feel that the dam is about to break…
Ensoulment album and 2024 World Tour
In early 2024, The The announced a world tour for later in the year and that a new album, called Ensoulment, would finally be released on 6th September through Cinéola/earMUSIC in all formats, and with special editions. Ensoulment proudly features some of the previously unpublished works of Matt Johnson’s late brother Andrew (AKA artist Andy Dog), on the cover, in the exquisitely designed 32-page booklet for the vinyl and CD formats, as well as on the covers of the three pre-album single releases. The The fans will know that Andrew had also been responsible for the majority of the classic The The artwork in the past.
The The – Cognitive Dissident (Official Video)
From mid-June 2024, preview tracks from Ensoulment were released as singles, with accompanying videos. “Cognitive Dissident” was the first with Matt Johnson saying of the subject matter, We certainly live in interesting times. The world is becoming more inverted, weird and hallucinogenic by the day. The song lyrics allude to Matt’s 1980s work like Infected but are conspicuously updated to the present, the paranoia of the times, and the notion that what was previously considered reliable facts have become Post-Truth: The consensus? Created! Reality? Curated! Every place you thought you belonged, everything you thought you knew – is wrong. Guitarist Barrie Cadogan co-wrote the song and also provides backing vocals. The video itself is also reminiscent of something from Infected’s accompanying video album, so long-time The The fans will feel on familiar ground. Matt Johnson himself was also in familiar territory for the video as it was directed by long-time collaborator Tim Pope, with editing, VFX and projections by video collage artist Vicki Bennett, and photography by Peter Knight.
The second preview single from the album was “Linoleum Smooth to the Stockinged Foot” and this was released digitally on 11th July, followed later by a limited 7-inch vinyl release. This song details candid observation of his stay in hospital following a 2020 near-death experience that Matt had after suffering from a throat abscess. Initially reluctant to have surgery because of concerns about his singing, his doctor then told him it was now a matter of life or death. The lyrics were written from his hospital bed, under the influence of morphine while recovering from a life-saving operation. Although not related to COVID-19, it occurred when it reached crisis proportions, so making this an even more surreal ordeal for Matt. Along with the many blunt lyrical observations, Matt also tried to convey this hallucinogenic state in the song’s instrumentation.
Matt Johnson. Photo: Gerald Jenkins.
No other members of The The’s current line-up were used but guest musicians were asked to improvise over the track without hearing the other’s contributions, with Matt on guitars, vocals and bass, and manipulating the sounds later. The song constantly builds towards a climax, the effect that something dramatic could occur at any time. For the video, the same collaborators from Cognitive Dissident were used, with the addition of Anya Krasnikova as Director of Photography. The minimalist video attempts to conjure the internal state caused by anaesthesia through overlapping close-up images of Matt, thereby making for a sedating and delirious effect.
The third and final single from the new album, Some Days I Drink My Coffee by the Grave of William Blake, was digitally released on 29th August with a limited edition 7-inch vinyl issued the following day. After the release of Dusk in 1993, Matt admitted to suffering from writer’s block in its development. This is also a song he had been trying to finish for many years. On his website, he talks of William Blake’s inspiration: On and off over the last forty years I have lived close by and have always found it an inspiring place to sit and meditate upon life. Nostalgia is part of the human condition and change is inevitable in our lives and in the world around us. Large capital cities such as London often amplify the sense of change… As well the current group line-up of Matt Johnson on vocals and acoustic guitar; Barrie Cadogan on electric guitar and backing vocals; DC Collard on keyboards; James Eller on bass; and Earl Harvin on drums, the song also features Sonya Cullingford on fiddle and Gillian Glover on backing vocals. After the intense claustrophobic effect of the videos for the previous two singles, this is a more relaxed affair that features all of the current lineup playing their instruments while sitting and gathering around in a circle. Once again, Tim Pope directed, Vicki Bennett edited, and Anya Krasnikova was Director of Photography.
The The – Some Days I Drink My Coffee By The Grave of William Blake (Official Video)
The rest of the twelve tracks on Ensoulment oscillate from Matt’s observational standpoint, from internal broodings to global commentators. “Zen and the Art of Dating”, a song musically reminiscent of the Dusk album, is an attentive (even sardonic) look at dating apps, particularly the way social media has caused human relationships to become distanced: Swipe to the left – swipe to the right. He needs somebody tonight. In terms of lyrical content, “Kissing the Ring of POTUS” is a more inverted update on “Heartland” and “Angels of Deception” from Infected, particularly in how, many years after the loss of Empire, Britain finds its current role in the world as merely a follower of its Superpower cousins across the Atlantic Ocean. “Life After Life” goes back to Matt’s solipsist side, a search for meaning in the contemporary world as his autumn begins and, perhaps, inviting us to ask the same questions. In “I Want to Wake Up with You” Matt finds Matt looking for emotional understanding in his relationships. For 2007’s download-only single “Mrs Mac”, the subject matter was his (apparently somewhat brutal) first school teacher. “Down by the Frozen River” is something of a companion piece as it tells the tale of a teenage Matt and his friends bunking off school to a Den where they enjoy cider and sweets. “Risin Above The Need” is a reflective but optimistic look at Matt’s past demons and excesses from a better place. In a tribute to Matt’s late father, “Where Do We Go When We Die?” looks at the anonymity of those who have passed in the larger world afterwards. “I Hope You Remember (the things I can’t forget)” initially seems to be an interpersonal message but it progressively becomes clear that he is talking to all of us, lamenting a changing world. Finally, “A Rainy Day In May” ends the album with a mournful tale of a chance meeting that is later filled with longing, for what might have been.
The overall tone of the Ensoulment album is of a somewhat mature, brighter and sometimes optimistic place, thereby updating Matt’s cerebral and emotional template. Furthermore, it is a more meditative and contemplative reaction to Social Media, AI, Post-Truth, Right-Wing resurgence, the Pandemic and the Great Reset. Although initially it can seem a little musically sparse and mid-tempo, more consistent than astonishing, especially compared to the dramatic urgency and smouldered rage of Infected and Mind Bomb respectively, Ensoulment gradually reveals its little production intricacies and the music progressively sounds more voluminous, stronger, more organic and cohesive. Encouragingly, Matt’s recovered voice is in fine form throughout the album, and his band is masterful in their playing, not least in the return of DC Collard for his first album appearance since 1993’s Dusk, this album also being very considerably the best official The The release since then. Ensoulment was co-produced by Matt Johnson and Warne Livesey, the latter of whom was responsible for production on Infected and Mind Bomb, and who also engineered this album.
The Ensoulment World Tour began in the UK at the end of August with three small venue warm-up shows in Cambridge, Norwich and Holmfirth followed by a bigger show in Dublin at Collins Barracks. On the day of the album release, The The will play Rock City in Nottingham, UK, followed by Barnsley before heading off to Scandinavia. On September 17th The The play the first of two German dates at Huxley’s Neue Welt in Berlin, then the following day at Carlswerk Victoria in Cologne. After Belgium and The Netherlands, there will be more dates in the UK, ending on 1st October at London’s Brixton Academy. The tour then goes to North America for thirteen dates between 11th October and 8th November. The last leg of the tour will take in New Zealand and Australia from 14th-27th November, countries not played on The Comeback Special tour in 2018, so it will be the first chance in many years for audiences there to see The The again.
Photo Credit: Gerald Jenkins
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