Matisyahu is all over the music map, and coming here

By Alan Sculley
Correspondent

Matisyahu - a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn who blended reggae and hip-hop - may have been unique when he came on the scene with his 2004 CD, "Shake Off the Dust... Rise."

In some ways, however, it's only with his latest CD, "Light," that Matisyahu has become his own man on an artistic level, making a CD that comes closer to the sound and range of music he wants to create.

"I sort of broke away from anyone who was telling me how to make music or what kind of music to make," Matisyahu said in a phone interview during his latest tour, which brings him to Norfolk on Tuesday. "I just sort of went - these are the kind of beats I want on the record. These are the people I want to write it with. This is who I want to work with."

Reggae and hip-hop continue to be at the root of many of the new songs. For instance, "I Will Be Light" is a pure reggae/dub song, while "Escape" leans heavily on hip-hop with its rapped vocals and skittering beat. Then on "Smash Lies," Matisyahu fuses reggae and hip-hop seamlessly, finding a beat and pulse that somehow suggests both styles.

But much of the "Light" CD ventures well beyond those styles. "So Hi, So Lo" fuses soul and rock. A bit of grand, symphonic pop sweetens "For You," while the beat keeps a street-level grit. "Motivate" and "Darkness Into Light" bring a rock element into Matisyahu's musical vocabulary.

The move toward a wider-ranging sound didn't happen overnight for Matisyahu (whose English name is Matthew Miller). In fact, his musical interests began to expand soon after his first CD was in stores.

During long van rides on his first tours he had plenty of time to listen to the guys in his band and be "totally opened up to all different artists and all different styles of music."

Some unlikely collaborators helped Matisyahu achieve his genre-hopping goals for "Light."

His primary producer on the project is David Kahne, who is far more known for his work in the pop field (Paul McCartney, the Bangles, Regina Spektor) than anything based in reggae or hip-hop.

"My initial work with him was on the John Lennon compilation," Matisyahu said. "I did the song 'Watching the Wheels.' "

"I felt like I wanted someone who would sort of encourage me to expand, especially as a vocalist," he said. "I think that's really where he kind of shines the most, is working with vocalists."

Joel and Benji Madden of the pop-punk group Good Charlotte co-wrote "Darkness Into Light" with Matisyahu after a chance meeting.

"I guess they sort of were into my music, and happened to be in New York producing some up-and-coming artists," Matis-yahu said.

He got a call that they were at the studio and wanted to meet him. "We just started working. It was the first thing that I worked on for the new record.

"There had been sort of like a melody on a certain lyric that kept circulating in my consciousness, that I kept singing to myself. So I got up to the studio and said, 'What do you guys think of this? Let me sing you this part.' And I sang that for them, and they ended up basically canceling out the day, clearing off their schedule, and we just spent the day in the studio and came up with that track, 'Darkness Into Light.' "

The greater range in tempos and styles on "Light" is resulting, naturally, in concerts that offer more variation than his previous, nonstop blistering shows.

His band joins longtime guitarist Aaron Dugan and keyboardist Rob Marscher with the Dub Trio (guitarist DB Holmes, bassist Stu Brooks and drummer Joe Tomino).

He got interested in the Dub Trio after seeing them perform a couple of times.

"We got together in Brooklyn. We played a show, an all-improvised set, no rehearsal or anything like that. And it felt like totally amazing, really

beautiful. The music just - I didn't have to ever tell anybody how or what to play. They're such a creative group of musicians and tasteful, but we all have this sort of thing going where we really felt we were listening to each other.

"From that night on they became my band, with Aaron and Rob. So it's a bigger band, a lot of melodic keyboards and guitars with lots of pedals and stuff, a lot of dubs."

Alan Sculley, alanlastword@earthlink.net