#ComingUp: Every Scar Has A Story On Re Mattei’s "Stories Lived"
Written By: Big C
A good story can outlive the moment that created it. Re Mattei gathers nine of them on Stories Lived, letting memory, imagination, love, mistakes, family, and the people encountered along the way share space inside one album. Nine songs may tell nine different tales, but Mattei understands that the most personal details can often uncover something surprisingly familiar in ourselves. Co-produced by Mattei and two-time GRAMMY Award winner Antaeus, with Alex Psaroudakis and Joe Maldonado handling mixing and mastering, Stories Lived keeps the instrumentation organic enough for the characters and their choices to remain front and center. Re Mattei explains:
These songs are pieces of who I was and who I'm becoming, as I grow into my authentic self both as a soul on this earth and as a songwriter. They are stories gathered along the way and told honestly, even when they're messy. This album is made of old feelings, new voices, daring to dream, and the people I met somewhere in between. Some of these songs lived inside me for years. Others found me when I was ready to tell them.
It’s A Love Thing values the person over the possessions, while Heartbreak In A Bottle looks directly at those relationship patterns we somehow recognize and repeat anyway. Hot Mess finds liberation in dropping the performance of perfection, and Michigan Rain takes a darker road through consequence and moral collapse. Then there is I Wanna Hear a Train Song, tapping into that familiar image of tracks stretching toward somewhere else, while Momma Always Knows” brings the focus back home through generational wisdom. As a Berklee College of Music graduate who previously worked as a Family Nurse Practitioner, she has spent different chapters of her life studying music and caring for people. Two experiences which make "Stories Lived" work. Listen as she keeps bringing the focus back to people's flaws, resilience, decisions, inheritance, and second chances. Follow Re Mattei on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (X), and YouTube.
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