Mathas

The original Norwegian fairy tale speaks of three goats looking to cross a bridge in order to find new grass to feed on, but underneath that bridge lives a nasty troll that’s liable to eat them. Now the Western Australian hip hop artist has taken elements of this story and reapplied them to the phenomenon of online trolling – an increasingly prevalent, faceless form of bullying that can be devastating to its victims.

“It’s referring to that troll from storybooks and why that word popped up in current internet culture,” Mathas says. “It’s trying to draw a connection between the two. The reason I started writing about it is more watching what happens to a lot of the people I know and a lot of friends – it doesn’t really happen to me so much, at least not yet. But you watch it every day, and women in particular cop it a lot. It’s talking about [the idea that] maybe that character hasn’t changed too much from the storybook.”

In typical Mathas fashion, the song paints a dark picture, depicting trolling as a kind of horrible bloodlust. However, it takes on an ambivalent tone towards the end with the repetition of the lines: “I suppose that’s just the way we eat here / Can’t you see we’re trying to eat here?”

“[In] some of the lyrics I’m actually talking about creative output,” he explains. “Artists will spend a long time working on something that’s their brainchild and is their main outlet for their creativity, and then once it gets put onto the internet it’s there for public scrutinising. The use of ‘We’re trying to eat here,’ I suppose that’s more in reference to the artists trying to put media out into the world, and then that’s being picked to pieces in a very vocal way these days. Maybe that kind of criticism only came from reviewers once upon a time, and now it’s free rein for everybody.

“But that line is also in reference to the Three Billy Goats Gruffas well. You know, ‘Can’t you see we’re trying to eat here?’ because what they’re trying to do is get to the other side of the bridge to get to the greener grass. And the troll keeps popping up and stopping them.”

‘Bravo Troll’ came out in late March, just six months after the Mathas’ second LP, Armwrestling Atlas. It was a surprise to hear new music from Mathas so soon, considering Armwrestling Atlas came a long six years after his debut LP, 10lb Hairless Sasquatch. Once the album was finally completed, however, he felt a surge of creative freedom.

“It had been a really intense process for a long time for me. So once that was done I basically just set my studio back up, and my aim is to sit in the studio for a while and try to make new stuff, because I hadn’t really written a new song in about two years while I was trying to finish Armwrestling Atlas. I’m not a particularly great multitasker. So I’ve actually been making new songs like crazy, which has been awesome.”

This jolt of inspiration means there’s a new Mathas EP on the cards for later in 2016. “I’ve already named the EP, and that’s going to hopefully come out before the end of the year. I’m moving pretty steadily towards it and I’m not giving myself the 12-, 13-track goal of an album. That’s going to be called Gripes With The Human Mind, and that’s going to come out a little later in the year.”