Featured Artists

Featured Artist: Matt Lowen

Along with their own albums, Rick and Lori have produced several fine local artists here at the lodge. Matt Lowen is a favourite.

Watch Matt Perform

Latt Mowen is Matt Lowen, a riotous folk singer/songwriter with a unique wit, sharp-edged voice, and scintillating guitar chops. A man of many names, Latt combines story & song in his entertaining and memorable live performances. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll forget to check Instagram.

The Girl Who Was a Crow (2021)

Matt’s newly released fourth album, The Girl Who Was a Crow, earned him the 2021 Fraser Valley Music Award for Best Folk Artist.

This is the break-up album: dark-blue and lonely as a cloud. There’s blood on the tracks and tears on the pillow now. The journey wanders under sad skies and painted constellations, beyond the horizon and down weathered roads of love, memory, and fate while the lonesome wind blows cold and rainy.

Spare, stark, and true to the folk tradition, each song was captured live off the floor in a single heartfelt take. This is GUITAR & VOICE: raw, honest, and gut-wrenchingly sincere.

Released October 1, 2021.

Early Years

In 2012, after another attempt at rock and roll superstardom with folk-rockers The Lucindas, Matt set out for greener pastures and higher frequencies as a solo artist, independently releasing his debut album Junkie’s Bank Account to positive reviews.

Born in Vancouver in 1986, Lowen first broke into music in Paul McCartneyan fashion as bassist for the promising but ill-fated art-rock group Mosaic.

Finding His Voice

After touring Western Canada in support of JBA, Matt stepped away from the road to finish his degree in English Literature and write. Inspired by the death of his grandfather and the collapse of a long-term relationship, he sought healing and catharsis with pen and paper.

Rising before dawn each day to write, Matt channeled his muse in those quiet hours until he emerged holding the songs that became his award-nominated album Last Year’s Leaves.

Recording at Spiderlodge: Last Year’s Leaves (2014)

Recorded with Rick Genge at Spiderlodge Studios, Last Year’s Leaves “ripened and fell from the vine” during warm July nights.

Matt and Rick emphasized the organic spirit of the music through acoustic instrumentation, abandoning percussion and letting the melodies carry the songs.

Matt independently released and marketed the album to maintain creative control – a decision that led to one memorable mishap. While filming the music video for “Daisy Rose,” Matt and his crew became stranded on a mountaintop after an early October sunset. After hours of cautious descent in darkness, they were met by police officers preparing a search party. Creative control indeed.

Although the music video was never finished, the album earned critical acclaim and an FVMA award nomination.

Brian Lowen’s Kid: A New Chapter in Victoria

In 2016, Matt made a new home in Victoria, BC, and adopted the stage name Brian Lowen’s Kid. After recording through the Winter of 2017, he released his third album, And The Devil Makes Five, on April 1, 2018.

With a full band returning to the studio, this EP brought a guitar-driven folk-rock sound and inspired melodic writing – tying up the philosophical loose ends left hanging from Last Year’s Leaves.

The title track won the West Coast Songwriter’s International Songwriting Competition for the Folk Category.