Big Search is the alter ego of present-day Los Angelino Matt Popieluch. Best known as the singer and co-songwriter of Foreign Born, he has also collaborated over the past decade with the likes of Fool’s Gold, Glasser, Cass McCombs, Papercuts and John Webster Johns. All the while, the lion’s share of his creative output has been recorded under the Big Search nom de guerre, the relentless expansion of what he describes as “an elastic, mental puzzle based on intuition and luck”.
Over the past decade, Big Search has grown into its own veritable mountain of written and recorded music. To date, only two limited edition releases have made it down the mountain: Mysticism vs. Classicism (2006), recorded in 2003, and Lay of the Land(2010), a collection of home recordings on Secretly Canadian’s St. Ives label.
Popieluch’s instincts navigate Big Search through the aural waterways of the world, up back-country gulches which open out into sonic sunset vistas. Scarcely knowing where the journey leads next, Popieluch remains undaunted; the Big Search sound maintains its unmistakable immediacy through constant on-stage and in-studio improvisation. Live shows, with their radical revisions and daily works-in-progress, have a way of utterly bewildering both audiences and bandmates alike, ultimately uniting them all again through the same process, which has become a hallmark of the Big Search method.
Influenced by the work of Randy Newman, Lindsey Buckingham and Arthur Russell, the current Big Search musical agenda counters the primal elements of synth, folk and rock n’ roll. With heavy use of vocal harmony, off-center rhythmic arrangements and a knack for abrupt texture changes, he is casting a bright new light on the significance of writing songs in our currently surreal musical climate.
Having bowed out from all other musical engagements, Popieluch is now focusing the whole of his energy on Big Search and is presently finishing up his next studio album at White Iris’ studio in Echo Park, surfing and playing as much ping pong as he can in the meantime.
