Toronto-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Matthew Cooke is the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Mawzy. And with the project’s debut EP Escapism and full-length debut, last year’s Long View, Cooke quickly developed an approach that sees him penning lyrics that capture the “unnavigability” of life and romance in his hometown paired with lush synths and crafted melodies.
Long View‘s title track “Long View” was featured on CBC’s Afterdark, Spotify Fresh Finds, and Amazon’s Apologies playlists. Building on a growing profile. the Toronto-based artist’s latest single “Better Man” is the second and latest single off his forthcoming Thom D’Arcy full-length album. Built around glistening synth arpeggios, a gentle yet relentless motorik pulse, four-on-the-floor-like drumming, bursts of expressive guitar and a remarkably catchy hook paired with the Canadian artist’s plaintive croon, “Better Man” is a slow-burning and introspective ballad, rooted in lived-in experience, while sounding indebted to 80s synth pop.
“‘Better Man’ was a song I wrote striving to do better for those you love/ I’ve learned through this song that love is delicate and it needs care,” Cooke explains. “our words need to be proven by our actions. Releasing this song is therapuyetic in the same way learning to let go of the love that ‘Better Man’ was written about.”
Directed and edited by Bee Pethick follows a heartbroken man, driving from the city to the county to get away. At first, we see him with a lover — but as the video progresses, we see that the lover is just a nostalgia-induced yet vivid ghost, who haunts him. Throughout there’s the lingering sense of “what if” and “what could have been.”
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