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Vancouver Artist Matías Roden Uses Love as a Healing Factor on New Single “Glowing” from Debut ‘The Plea’ EP

August 20, 2024
William Brookson
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Matías Roden is a Peruvian-Canadian singer-songwriter living in Vancouver, BC. Signed to Light Organ Records, his first single, “Snow Angel,” was released in November 2023 and followed by two more singles in 2024. Roden has performed at Music Waste and Khastahlano festivals since, as well as the upcoming Summerlight Festival, and his full-length debut album is set for release in early 2025.

Debut EP, The Plea, was recorded at Vancouver’s 604 Studios and serves as Roden’s formal introduction to this world; the official start of his journey as an artist. The Plea symbolizes a mixture of helplessness and resilience – it’s what happens when you’re young and you lose hope in the things that you thought mattered in your life. 

“I think the classic ‘quarter life crisis’ for a lot of young people feels like you’re being put on trial by your own hopes and dreams and others’ expectations for your life,” Roden explains. “It can feel overwhelming to realize that maybe your life isn’t going in exactly the direction you wanted it to go. So The Plea is a play on words of a plea deal at a trial where you’re both at the mercy of forces beyond your control but also wanting to defiantly assert yourself. It’s like I’m saying ‘I will get my life back together, I will get over this heartbreak or over this failure to live out my hopes and dreams, I will make them happen.’”

Focus track, “Glowing,” is the moment where things start to turn a bit more hopeful. After a devastating heartbreak, Roden starts to learn to trust someone else and open up a bit more. Produced by Louise Burns, the song combines two very different elements of British pop music from the 80s and 90s – jazzy sophisti-pop and breakbeat.

1. What did you enjoy most about the recording process of this new release?
Prior to recording the songs that are on this EP, I’d only ever really recorded myself. This was the first time I had a producer (Louise Burns, who produced every song on the EP and on my upcoming album) who was also producing my vocals. I never realized how many different harmonies, oohs and ahhs and background bits go into professional recordings, it was completely eye-opening and so fun to build the track that way. Louise would also sometimes interject to ask me to sing in a different way, paying attention to each phrase in a way I’d never done before. 
2. Share a nugget of advice that has resonated with you most over the years.
Make music you want to hear and press play on. I feel like you can never go wrong that way, if you create something you genuinely love, someone else is bound to as well. And why would you want to be successful with something you hate anyway?
3. Who would be your dream artist/band to co-headline a tour with?
Orville Peck or Olly Alexander from Years & Years. I feel like musically there are some common elements, a kind of Twin Peaks vibe with the former and the British synth-pop element with the latter, and they’re both trailblazers in recent years for gay men in popular music.
4. What sets your music apart from others in your genre?
I think I draw from a ton of different influences without restrictions. On this EP there are only five songs yet there is uptempo synth-pop, a reggaeton sample, breakbeat, ballads, there’s a lot of different sounds and the album is even more eclectic. I have an “anything goes” attitude towards my music, I’m trying to make each project be something ambitious with a large canvas of sounds, held together by my songwriting voice.
5. Tell us what your favourite song is at the moment and why.
I’m obsessed with a song Orville Peck just released for a film soundtrack, it’s called “Permanently Lonely” and it’s a bit synthier than his usual stuff, the way his voice sings “I’m permanently lonely baby” towards the end is amazing, just one of those perfect hooks you hear once in a while.

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