New album Desire is released
Click here to listen to Desire now.
Musician Michael Bird, the core member of the band mrmoth, announces the band’s first album since 2003’s Unto the Waste Land. The new album, Desire, features nine songs, written and produced exclusively by Bird. It is Bird’s most autobiographical music to date and also marks a departure musically from the band’s past work.
“While I was away from mrmoth as a concern, I had spent a couple years playing in a punk band as a rhythm guitarist. I’d found myself gravitating back toward more purely electronic music in response, out of a need for balance I think. I was only playing guitar in that band so it followed that escape meant more often than not that I’d be programming beats and writing lyrics for fun. When my relationship with that band concluded, the next logical step was to turn those experiments into proper music. The first couple of things I worked on after the conclusion of that band were largely unfinished ideas from that period, which is where the ‘White Fragility’ single came from.”
“I was also being hugely influenced by what were then a new generation of really unique and experimental electronic acts, like HEALTH, Gazelle Twin, I Speak Machine, Fuck Buttons, Blanck Mass and Gesaffelstein. I was so jealous of the way in which those acts were redefining the assumptions about what beat driven electronic music was obligated to do. I wanted to use that same license in the context of mrmoth. While I am still decidedly a traditional song writer, I wanted to see what I could do in pushing the electronic arrangements.”
“Paradoxically, the outcome was that I really reconnected with the piano, which if anything, seemed to step up and take the place the guitars used to occupy. There’s still quite a bit of guitar on this record, but it isn’t really the point the way it has been on the past records. Playing guitar in the punk band left me without the feeling that I had anything to prove as a guitarist. And the last thing I wanted to do afterward was play guitar, anyway.”
“The ideas on this record have their origins in a long range of years. Since Waste Land, I intentionally took time off from the band as a concern. I always knew I’d return to it, but I had other things that monopolized my attention. My fine art education had lead me to a career as a college professor, with all the professional and artistic demands that go with that. There just wasn’t that much time left on balance to work on music. A couple years becomes five becomes 10 and before you know it, you question whether or not anyone knows or cares that you once made music as your primary concern.”
A series of digital reissues of the band’s 2000s-era back catalog were well-received and Bird was confident that perhaps there would be a reason to re-approach the subject.
“People would email me from time to time, asking where they might find ‘Everybody Wants to Fuck’ and I was convinced that maybe it was time to let the streaming world use the catalog as it would. It was just sitting on my hard drives otherwise, so why not? Anyway, there was enough motion on all that, with next to no promotion, so I was conscious that I probably still had as much of an audience as I ever had so I decided to gradually test the waters with a few singles.”
Those singles make up a solid run of the album’s first half. “I was very much easing into this. I had to see if it was worthwhile for myself, to see if I had anything to say, or the means to say it. I used the covers we released as singles to work on technical concerns. But by the time I had released ‘Call On Your Stars’ as a single, I knew full well that there was an album in the offing and I began tooling away at an ever-evolving set of demos until the thing properly took form.”
With two years of labor built into them, this is the most polished and confident mrmoth album in the catalog, and strangely also the shortest.
“It’s funny because there’s more lyrics and more music in this record than the back catalog, but it’s about a third shorter. I was working hard toward a concise record that delivered the goods and bounced out. I was thinking very hard about techno pop records of the 80s, where atmosphere and experimentation were explored within the constraints of pop singles. With the previous work, any exploration was really pushed to the front, even ahead of the songs at times. But if I’m trying to reconnect with an audience, it occurred to me that I ought not put a bunch of obstacles in the way.”
Exploring a running theme of a life in the midst of redefinition, these songs speak candidly about that process. While not a concept album, it’s not difficult to see a common thread in the collection.
“When it came right down to it, if I was going to write lyrics again, I needed them to be closer to myself, without the old style of mythologizing I used to employ. So these songs are more decidedly in my own voice and less obfuscated.”
Does that mean that the ether album series is dead?
“I wouldn’t say that.”
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Announcing Desire
mrmoth will release their first album in 16 years, Desire at all digital venues on October 25th, 2019.
The track listing is as follows:
Protected
The End of the Road
Gone Down
Call on Your Stars
Autonomy
Metropolitan
Shark Eyes
And Now the Reckoning
Desire
The album is a departure from the rest of the mrmoth catalog as it is meant to be a more focused collection of synth pop songs. While synth pop implies a relationship to the classic synth pop of the 80s currently enjoying another renaissance among many contemporary electronic acts, in this case it isn’t meant to imply that this album is to be nostalgia-driven nor will it feature a particularly retro sound.
Core member of mrmoth, Michael Bird explains, “I appreciate the more concise, song-driven nature of that era, and its proud focus on technology in music as aesthetic mission. I wanted this album to be nimble and lean, while still focusing on the assets of this particular band’s sound. The emphasis on this record is less on guitar though, and more on piano and keys.”
Additional details, including lyrics and a song-by-song break down will be available on mrmoth.com on October 25th.
Previously available singles from this album have been remastered for this release and new masters for the singles will be sent to distributors before the 25th. Updates per availability will be posted to mrmoth.com and associated social media once available.
8/14/2019 Update
Time to bring you up to speed, loyal reader.
Previously-mentioned straggler, the song once known as “Reclamation,” has been finished. Its lyrics were some of the hardest fought-for on this record. The effort was worth as it as I’m actually quite proud of it …I’m somewhat surprised to report. That particular song’s new title is known to me, but I’m hedging on it. I will probably resolve to accept the title I am considering, but I’m not pressed to decide just yet, so I’m standing non-committal until such time.
Honestly, much of the album is done. Like, really, truly finished. I’m down to one final track on which vocals have been started, though they are as of yet unfinished. There a couple of open-ended considerations with one other and I’m still turning a few stones trying to see if there are any other preferable options before I definitively accept that it is done. It is very strong as-is, but it’s hard to not hope it can be elevated even higher.
I suppose I should know more Friday. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but I’d say it is likely we’re close to things really kicking into overdrive. There’s much to announce, but I shouldn’t get out over my skis, just yet.
More soon.
8/02/2019 UPDATE
Of recent note, vocals have been completed and the final mix is very close for the album’s opening song. I am unsure that I would regard it as single material, but a very clear video has been envisioned and I’m inclined to make it. We’ll see.
Lyrics for song mentioned and referred to as “Reclamation” in my previous post have stagnated and I’ve hit a minor block with them. The solution will come to me. I just have to be patient.
Past that there is a mostly completed lyric for as-yet unrevealed song that if I find the right approach for recording, would complete the second half of the album. It is funny that it’s taking so long to finish because it was started in 2004 and was originally intended for the final ether album. It eventually was excised for reasons I’ll someday illuminate. As I say, the lyric is mostly finished and it’s time to just do battle with it until it is completed.
All of this is to say, in summary, that the thing is close. I can see and hear it and I’m trying my damnedest to bring it to completion before mid-August when everything gets turned upside down.
In all of the old era of my catalog, being this close would tempt me to concede to challenges and let things I knew needed fixed pass by me in the interest of just finishing. But I haven’t released an album in almost 16 years and no one is waiting for this thing. So I am inclined to just get it right instead. If all holds to expectations and the situation is workable, I am hopeful that I will be ready to release the thing in October.
We’ll see.
7/12/2019 UPDATE
So it’s been a little bit with no update. Much to report.
“Shark Eyes” is in the bank.
The title track of the album is in the bank – I’ll tell you the title and all about it later.
Lyrics were the main bone of contention this week as I have been chipping away at one that has a working (but probably not being used) title of “Reclamation.” That one is probably about 50% there. The verses are good. There’s a repeating pre-chorus that is proving challenging, mostly because I have too many good albeit unfinished ideas for it. The chorus will be quick though once I sort out the pre-chorus, as the strategy for it has been determined. This particular track will bear the closest resemblance to old mrmoth of anything on the album, though lyrically it’s still a bit of a departure.
“Metropolitan” has taken considerable steps forward. I’d been struggling with the choruses, but ultimately made the difficult decision to kill the sung chorus altogether. It was a bit over the top – a problem I find with most choruses generally – and ultimately there’s such a nice melody in the keyboards that I really hated stomping all over with my voice. I think it’s done, but I’m ultimately going to have to decide if I’m okay letting the song breathe without a sung chorus. It feels right, listening to it, but I’m not sure. I’ve heard these songs so many times as instrumentals, it’s difficult to know whether it’s my ear or if I’ve trained my response.
All told, I’m about three vocals from being done. If I’m honest it could be a million miles away just this moment for how it feels.
7/01/2019 UPDATE
Over the last week, the completed form of this project has really started to take shape.
The afore-mentioned cover got reworked a little to a place that I can probably call it final(ish). It’s too early to share it. That probably won’t happen until the project is announced properly.
While a working title has eluded me throughout the production, this weekend one appeared. I wouldn’t call it final but it is certainly close enough that it will bear a striking resemblance to whatever the final title ultimately becomes. Arriving at it was only possible because I have been able to finally see the thematic through-lines of the project and establish a proper running order. The title is a product of those two factors and it may or may not be shared with one of the songs – the last one. It’s too early to say definitively. With the ether series this is always quite easy because of the narrative structures. For those albums, I often knew the title before I ever recorded a note. Not so much with this current project and once I can actually discuss more about it, that will be easier to explain.
For now, know that I genuinely feel like I came over the top of a very steep hill this weekend. So much so that I can finally admit this is going to be an album. A proper album – my first since 2002.