How a Sandy Cove sunset inspired Québécois musician Matt Holubowski

Musician Matt Holubowski was on the last day of a vacation in Sandy Cove, N.S., last summer when he faced a dilemma: finish writing a song or go to the beach with his girlfriend.

The solution? Do both.

Holubowski had the chord structure and had written multiple versions of the verses for it, but nothing was sticking.

"I was sort of hitting my head against the wall because I really wanted to finish this song, but I didn't know how to get there," said the Québécois musician, who spent three weeks on a working vacation in Nova Scotia.

Armed with an acoustic guitar, he spent the day at the beach playing the song over and over, eventually taking in the sunset. His girlfriend also took photos of him.

Holubowski got the inspiration he needed, coming up with fresh lyrics. The finished product is Sandy Cove, one of the songs on his new album, Like Flowers On A Molten Lawn.

"I was really grateful to that sunset and that beach for having given me that song," Holubowski said in a recent phone interview from Montreal. "It was a bit of a relief in some ways."

With the basics in place, he soon began recording the song, adding elements such as cello, a Japanese instrument called a koto and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. (The orchestra also appears on two other songs on the album.)

Holubowski, who sings in English and French, is popular in his home province. He was a finalist in the 2015 edition of La Voix, the Québécois version of the television singing competition, The Voice.

While he is known primarily for being "an acoustic guitar guy," Like Flowers On A Molten Lawn sees him drawing from inspirations such as Radiohead and Pink Floyd, pushing his music in more experimental directions.

Nova Scotia was just one of the locations where he wrote the album. There were around a half-dozen working vacations that included visits to cottages owned by friends and even a trip to Croatia.

Holubowski said he always wanted to vacation in Nova Scotia, which is why he ended up in Digby County. He said he enjoyed lazy days of reading and writing. He liked having lobster and loved attending a wrestling festival.

Holubowski will be back to Nova Scotia in late August to film a music video for Sandy Cove, and he's hoping to play some shows in the province during that visit.

The first leg of his Canadian tour only went as far east as Moncton, N.B., and he's touring in Europe right now.

"I have been begging and begging my booking agents to send me out to Nova Scotia," Holubowski said.

Breaking out in Canadian markets outside of Quebec has been a challenge, he said.

"I think that there's something very strange that happens with artists that come from Quebec and the rest of Canada," said Holubowski. "There's this ... I don't want to call it a divide, but a separation, and I've been yearning for getting out in the rest of Canada and it's been difficult, more difficult than I thought it would be."

In writing the lyrics of Sandy Cove, Holubowski said he drew inspiration from the pandemic, and a situation many people have had to experience. He said a close friend's views have become extreme.

"It was really difficult to reconcile this person, whom I loved very much, I still love very much, and we just don't see eye to eye anymore on anything, and on things that we've always seen eye to eye on, and it just kind of came out of nowhere," he said.

"It blindsided me, and it was a little frightening and it was very sad, and I still mourn that."

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