" == I could be your painted big dream == You could put me in your coffee == We could make each other dizzy == "
I have been blessed today that the songs in my queue (to write about) are not only beyond amazingly artful but have the added benefit of being so creatively moving in terms of their lyrics. Sometimes that doesn't happen, sometimes my taste favors one or the other and, well, it just so happens that the song in question is "One / Other" by San Francisco based Geographer, the moniker for Mike Deni's synth pop / indie band / project.
I can't imagine anyone NOT loving / liking this track but for those who do not, that dislike would come instantly because the songs pull, cajole, charm, artistic measures are apparent right away. Literally within 20 seconds, the emotional stage is set, the ethereal temperament set. From there is just gets deeper, more melancholy, with blooming flowers of surprise and tender gut punches around soft corners. Deni's vocal countenance is beautifully poised in sadness, in real devastating pain that is tactile. and like looking through melted lens, distorts the shapes of things.
== Will you run away like all the others == Give the future to another == What if you are not the question I’m asking == Well you answered it == I could be your painted big dream == You could put me in your coffee == We could make each other dizzy ==
I love the orchestrations brought into raise the emotional discourse and the powerful avant rock shapes carried by shuffling beats and drones of sound until bigger drums and guitars with distortions amp up the intensity. Through Deni's mercurial voice, Geographer smashes all emotional things into something artfully amorphous yet beautifully moving and embracing.
== Dying stars and groceries == Buy one the other’s free == What are you after == You bastard == You sold the sky == And bought paradise == But who asked you ==
Deni offers these thoughts and feelings:
“It's easy to forget, when examining the brief and bloody history of humanity, that through it all, from the dark ages to the social media era, there has also been the tiny, muffled, sweet voice of love. In our own lives, we feel it every day, whether we’re connected to it or not. But it so rarely leaves the confines of our bodies or our darkened rooms, and almost never finds its way into the all-important, fluorescently lit rooms of power, commerce, and politics. Love, that most human of all qualities, most precious of all resources, is neglected so utterly in our daily lives, pushed aside for goals and, hopes and priorities that are not our own. This song has a chorus that I refuse to believe in: ‘You only get one or the other.’ Yes, sure, that’s how it would seem. But how can that be? I feel trapped in, mollified, and opiated by a system that relegates my love to the status of mere fuel for the mechanisms of power, and yet my love exists all the same. As if the coal in the ground were destined for much more than our furnaces.”
Life is full of those opiates of the masses now brought right to our hand ready to scroll through as soon as we awake from feigned dreams but then maybe love too is all around us, we just don't know how to absorb it.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://twitter.com/geographermusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vvvgOwPjA4R5t07ZXLLwZ
https://www.youtube.com/c/geographermusic/about
https://www.instagram.com/geographermusic/
https://www.geographermusic.com/
Geographer is the moniker for Mike Deni’s American synth pop/indie rock band. Formed in San Francisco in 2007, Deni has described his sound as being “soulful music from outer space” using analog, electronic, and acoustic elements to craft dense layers and unique sound textures.
The project began when, in 2007, Deni relocated to San Francisco from New Jersey, after living with the aftermath of the sudden and tragic death of his sister, and then the equally unexpected death of his father a year later. While sleeping on the floor of his friends’ apartment in the Haight, Deni found a synthesizer on the street, and began to channel both his grief and his optimism into the songs that would become Innocent Ghosts. This theme would continue through all his music, which pits intense and emotionally probing lyrics with momentous and soaring arrangements, often featuring electric cello. The Animal Shapes EP put Geographer on the map and launched his career. Since then, Geographer has headlined many national tours, played Outside Lands, Firefly, and other festivals, released two critically acclaimed albums, and performed with such musical luminaries as K.Flay, The Flaming Lips, Young The Giant, Tycho, Ratatat, Betty Who, and Tokyo Police Club.
In April of 2018, Deni gave up his apartment in San Francisco, and spent the next 6 months without a home, hopping between tours and friends’ couches, and spending a significant amount of time in his hometown, before eventually moving to Los Angeles in September of 2018. During that time of shiftlessness, in limbo between his old and new life, Deni wrote the songs that would become his EP, New Jersey. Many of the songs began where he grew up, and were finished in Los Angeles at his friend’s house while he was looking for an apartment.
Following the release of ‘New Jersey’, Geographer remained active, releasing a slew of singles throughout the rest of the year. Now he is back with a new full-length album, Down and Out in the Garden of Earthly Delights set for release in 2021. The odyssey of the album explores the pleasures and pains of life while testing the depths of the human condition.
Geographer, ethereal pop, indie pop, indie rock, electronica, singer songwriter, dream pop, avant pop, "One/Other" (Official Video), New Jersey, San Francisco, Mike Deni,
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