Synth-pop nostalgia enchanter Geographer is back with a new single to soundtrack your lovelorn gloom with, sharing both the track “I Don’t Remember It Starting” and a dreamily indigo-splashed music video alongside it. The song comes as his first release since their last album Down and Out in the Garden of Earthly Delights and as a result, it’s the first excerpt fans will get of his yet untitled but forthcoming new album. One that will seemingly delve deeper into the kind of somber and lushly kinetic soundscapes that have remained an undercurrent across Geographer’s discography (and especially within the sprawling synth worlds of his last album).
“I Don’t Remember It Starting” blooms — like many a Geographer song — out of an earnest expression of love. Across the song’s intimate imagisms, there’s a characteristic tenderness and amour that radiates from Mike Deni’s lambent cries. But underneath the buoyant echo of drum machines and scintillating synths the track dips in and out of the chaotic and cumbersome hang-ups of life. “Cut off your hair / Fall down a flight of stairs,” Deni sings against the song’s sublimely shuddering rhythms. “I mean nothing to them / Was it something I said.”
Given the song’s title, it’s clear the track is meant to elucidate the moment one falls in love, yet it also poignantly touches on the different cycles of life in general. “We’ve got high hopes and old friends / We’ve got rivers and oceans,” he muses in the song’s chorus. “We’ve got plans on the weekend / We fall in love before we find it.”
The music video for “I Don’t Remember It Starting,” directed by Brit O’Brien, reveals the extensive narrative dreamed up by Deni surrounding the song. Channeling David Bowie and David Byrne, it sees the artist dancing hypnotically in front of a stacked grouping of television sets in a familiar ’90s setup. Part of the idea behind the film and the character Deni embodies in it is inspired by “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” as he saw parallels in the song’s theme of creating a kind of manual for how to “live to the utmost absurdity within the bounds of what is considered normal.”
“So then, with images of Bowie’s alien blending, but never fully integrating, into society, a character started to crystallize in my mind of either an alien or a god,” Deni explained. “And this alien/god is observing humanity on his little TV screens and plugging the data into a device that then synthesizes a printout consisting of unintelligible answers to life’s mysteries, which he unceremoniously mails to some poor schmuck who is the protagonist of another song.”
Keep an eye out for the arrival of Geographer’s forthcoming album!
Visit Geographer on their website, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Words: Steven Ward
Watch the music video for “I Don’t Remember It Starting” the new single from Geographer below!
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