[Editor’s Note: Formed in San Francisco, Geographer is the musical project of now Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Mike Deni. Earlier this year, Deni released new album A Mirror Brightly. Like past albums, Deni’s lyrics chronicle life’s imperfections. He has performed with artists such as K.Flay, The Flaming Lips, Young The Giant, Tycho, Ratatat, Betty Who, and Tokyo Police Club.
Of the album he says, “it refers to the lights of the phone shining in our eyes, blinding us to ourselves, obscuring the truth. It also refers to the beauty of this life. That is the glimmer of hope on the record. It leaves the option open that one day we might turn the light back away from our faces to illuminate the darkness that surrounds us.”
Below he pens an essay describing his process of coming up with the album’s title.]
Picking a title is a very difficult task. Trying to distill the essence of each individual piece of music into one phrase is impossible, and the best titles seem to have nothing to do with their subject matter, or are deliciously cryptic. They build a house for you to walk into, to poke around the various rooms. Not every song on “Blue” is super sad, and not every song on OK Computer is about feeling like an automaton, but by the time you put the needle down, you’re already in this blank space of the imagination, and then the artist fills it.
The inspiration for “A Mirror Brightly” came from what I saw as the abandonment of humankind to technological advancement. As an a-religious person, I interpret the original phrase—“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”—as a biblical dada-esque acknowledgement of the absurd. But whatever it means, it is certainly one of the most potent literary spikes driven into what it feels like to be human; to exist halfway behind the veil, to have the capacity to know there is something beyond you, but to possess none of the senses necessary to perceive it. It’s the cruel joke of consciousness, and all the clutter of our lives, all the pursuits, all our beliefs, are a result of this conundrum.
The idea of staring into a mirror and having it blind you is a nasty one, but it’s a nasty feeling too. A humongous portion of the world’s population is addicted to social media, and no one is really doing anything about it. Capitalism assures us that natural competition will lead to improvements that will serve the average citizen. I’m not sure if it ever worked like that, but it certainly doesn’t now. We are sold, simply, what we can be compelled to buy. People say, “The algorithm only feeds you what you like.” But if you put a pizza in front of my nose, you will record an increased heart rate, and an increase in activity in my salivary glands. Should I then eat pizza at every meal because showing me broccoli produces a lukewarm response? At this point social media is shaping not just our lives but our lips, our jawlines, our butts. Unattainable beauty standards are being proffered as make-up tutorials and fitness routines. And it is becoming less and less profitable (if your currency is likes) to be unique. It’s like a high school cafeteria magnified to a global scale, and someone just dumped my lunch tray in my lap, and it turns out it was myself. I read “Sapiens” recently, and I loved the idea that plants actually domesticated humans. Lush, endless fields of healthy corn and wheat, and humans toiling day and night to help them grow. Technology has almost an evolutionary imperative to be created, to be discovered and expanded, and we’re here to help.
I usually write about fighting back against a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a stalwart emotional obstacle. But this time I’m singing back to the people who enrich themselves on the lost moments, the weakened intimacies, the cracked self worth, of their fellow humans. And it feels good to sing these songs to people in a darkened room. It’s one of the few moments I still feel whole, and even though machines are thrumming all around me on stage, at least they’re doing what I tell it to do, and not vice versa.
Mike Deni
Contributor
Mike is a San Francisco via Los Angeles-based songwriter that performs under the moniker Geographer
