The Imagination Stage

With The Imagination Stage, Eric Matthews is finally, fully back. Not only does his new album mark a return to glorious form, but it charts a stirring departure from the pop norm. Conscious craft drawn from a subconscious spark. Music conjured from "a deeper, more mysterious place," as he puts it. Dream pop in the truest sense of the phrase. "There's something new and different that's happening to me creatively," Matthews says. "There's the music I imagine, music that I want to make" and then there's the music I've been able to make. And those two aren't necessarily the same thing. Now, what I'm making is akin to dreaming music, something 'other-ly.'" Matthews has never experienced this sensation before. Not with Cardinal, his critically adored 90's chamber pop outfit, and not with his earlier solo work, starting with It's Heavy In Here, his acclaimed 1995 debut for Sub Pop Records. "I think it's a pretty rare thing," says Matthews. "But I'm not going to say I'm the only one it's happened to, because it's probably responsible for many of the special records we know about."