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Nathan Michel Upon its 2002 release, the album ABCDef begat much headscratching; not only for the sounds contained therein, but for the CD’s autistic and puzzling name, which alternately suggested a childlike logic and a beat-heavy drum-machine epic. (It was more the former and none of the latter.) For anyone patient enough to pay attention, ABCDef promised a deformed and complex toy kingdom, falling to pieces and burning to the ground before our ears. Melodic childlike when it wanted to be, distanced and impenetrable at the drop of a hat, ABCDef made it clear that Tigerbeat6’s new signee, Nathan Michel, was one of a handful of electronic musicians making sounds that were utterly unique, unclassifiable, and somehow giddily pleasurable.
Michel was shaped equally by classical music, rock, and pop electronic groups such as DAT Politics and Stereolab. He is currently at Princeton on full scholarship, working on a PhD in music composition, where he uses the time and resources to compose his albums, the latest of which is Dear Bicycle, released to positive reviews late last year. The album is sonically smooth, colorfully rendered and far more straightforward and melodic than ABCDef. We caught up with Michel to ask him some questions about the contrast between the first two albums, his newfound singing skills, and his thoughts about computer music.
Pixelsurgeon: Settle a bet for me: how is ABCdef pronounced? Do we spell out each letter, do we pronounce the 'def', or is it intentionally ambiguous?
Nathan Michel: It's pronounced a-b-c "def"... like "def jam"
How did you first get involved with Tigerbeat 6?
Through Kevin Blechdom. I was a fan of Blectum from Blechdom and I emailed Kristin (Kevin). I ended up sending her this weird little 3" CD-R that I made. It had crazy, short, super-edited tracks on it, sort of like a condensed version of ABCDef. She was roommates at the time with miguel/kid606. He heard the little CD and asked me to make a record for Tigerbeat6.
Please speak a bit about the situations that lead up to your studying at Princeton, and how your work there became interwoven with the production of your records for Tigerbeat 6 and Mr. Mutt
Well, I started making music when I was a kid playing drums and guitar in different bands and making rock n' roll songs on a 4-track. Toward the end of high school, I realized that the songs I was making were getting more and more complicated, with many different sections, chord changes, etc. So I thought the next logical step was to study music composition in college so I could notate my music. I really didn't learn how to read music until I was 18 or so. There were about five years in the mid 90s when I only listened to contemporary classical music. I repressed all interest in rock, jazz, etc. Not such a good idea. I guess around 1997 I heard Stereolab's record "Dots and Loops", which I really liked. I think I saw a relationship between that record and the classical music I was into at the time-- early Philip glass, Steve Reich, Louis Andreessen.
Gradually I started listening less and less to classical music and more and more to rock, jazz, electronic stuff to the point where now I listen more to Fleetwood Mac than Xenakis (a Greek/French composer who made very mathematical, but amazingly visceral music). So to recap: I started off in rock, got into classical for about 10 years and was re-born as a rocker. The great thing about the Princeton music department is that they (unlike some other composition programs) really encourage people to do their own thing. So in my case it's some weird offspring of Xenakis and Fleetwood Mac.
What is it like making somewhat cutesy experimental electronic music in an academic setting? Are you encouraged or discouraged?
I am encouraged by my stipend! My colleagues and teachers are also very supportive.
You've collaborated with Kid606 and Cex as well as DAT Politics and others. Can you expand on how your collaborative projects usually come about and what the collaborative process is like for you?
I've actually never collaborated with Kid606 or Cex, other than playing shows with them, although Kid606 gave me great advice on certain aspects of ABCDef and Dear Bicycle as i was making them. But I did record this summer with DAT Politics in France. I'm singing a bit on their new record which comes out in May! They are some of my favorite people. Discovering their music a couple of years ago was a revelation since they made electronic music with great melodies, harmonies and rock n' roll rhythm. Right now I am working on a record for their label Skipp Records. Anyway, I'd really like to do more collaboration. I think it's healthy for me since my default mode is to work alone. I'm hoping to arrange a number of my new songs for a large instrumental ensemble, probably some time in the Fall of 2004 so I look forward to working with a bunch of musicians then.
Dear Bicycle is considerably more accessible and melodic than your first album; going so far as to incorporate your singing on somewhat melodic pop songs. Why did you decide to make this album with catchier melodies and a more navigable surface?
I think part of it relates to what I was talking about earlier, with a gradual move in my interests back to my pop song roots, away from classical music. Also, when making ABCDef, I was into sculpting material in the computer and trying to come up with crazy new sounds. But after a while those crazy new sounds became boring old sounds so I returned to what I really like in music: catchy melodies, smooth jazz harmonies, and weird but danceable rhythms. Also, ABCDef is a record where the tracks sort of merge into each other, creating one large shape. The form is closer to classical music than rock. With Dear Bicycle, I wanted to make a more proper pop record with discreet, self-contained songs.
Who are your main musical influences?
Main influences: The Beatles, Bach, Stravinsky, Zappa, Steve Reich, Neil Young, and Louis Andriessen. More recently: Stereolab, DAT Politics, Nobukazu Takemura, Jim O'Rourke. Even more recently: Fleetwood Mac, ?Burt Bacharach, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt. Right now I can't get enough of Judee Sill.
Momus came up with a term, "Cute Formalism", that seems to describe your work well. Is it your intention to make music that's cerebral, complex, that takes a little bit of work on the part of the listener, but that has a charming, glossy, seductive surface to it?
I definitely think there are aspects of this in my music but I don't set out to make something that is complex. In fact, I try to make things as clear and simple as possible. If I want to be confusing, I even try and make that as clear as possible! There are certain artists I admire for their amazing ability to be at once completely bizarre and completely formal: Stravinsky, Beckett, Richard Foreman (actually he's just bizarre), Bunuel, and Bruce Nauman spring to mind. I like the idea of inviting people into a world that looks familiar but that once inside might have some odd things going on. I also think that my music proposes certain familiar things-- a form, a rhythm, a chord progression, and instrumental idea-- and then questions those things a bit.
Most reviewers of your albums tend to end up using the words "childlike", "playful", "toy box" or some variation thereof when reviewing your work, and I would probably be inclined to do the same. Do you think of yourself as recreating some strange alternate universe version of your childhood in your compositions, or is it your tendency to make music that comes across as colorful, hyperactive, imaginative, other traits we tend to associate with childhood?
I like to think that when I make music now I do it in the same way I did when I was 13 since it is mostly an intuitive thing for me. I think I can also trace my interest in composition-- in formal balance-- to playing with Legos when I was a kid. That said, I don't consciously attempt to recreate childhood, but I do think I have a nostalgic impulse for states outside of rational thought, whether it's a fascination with childhood, animals, or so-called "outsider artists". To me these people and animals represent a kind of utopia that exists before we are told what is right and what is wrong. I guess this is kind of a romantic notion.
With Bunuel, there's more of an 'anti-narrative', (though he would say the process is totally intuitive) he's intentionally creating narrative directions and 'trap doors' that are counterintuitive to a traditional narrative progression. It's very much intended to obfuscate old structures. Dear Bicycle seems similar to this, in that it does have a 'pop' structure yet somehow remains a little perverse, a little distorted, a little impenetrable. Do you think this improves pop music, making it (to use a faded mid-nineties buzzword) "Avant-Pop'? (Sorry if that made you wince) Does the 'delay' make the experience of pop music that much more fulfilling, or is that whole concept kind of snooty and aristocratic?
Good question. I use pop song forms because I like to start with a familiar structure and then mess with it, rather than creating some crazy new stuff from scratch. As for the moments when the pop song form may be a bit disrupted, questioned, whatever... I think that if those moments are done well they can be quite fulfilling since a new perspective may be illuminated. Sometimes it's even possible to make old, cliché things sound fresh again... like a sax solo or drum and bass or something.
Why did you decide to sing on this album? Have you mostly been getting compliments on your voice? Were you in the church choir as a kid or something?
Well, I decided to sing since I was writing pop songs... and most pop songs have a singer. As for my own singing, I try and sing as naturally as possible, with very little inflection. As a kid I always imitated the way certain people I admired sang... mostly John Lennon and Neil Young. Then in college I sang in a chamber choir where you have to sing in a really stylized, artificial way. So I guess I'm trying to avoid all that by being as blank as possible. I do like the idea of trying to sing beyond your range. Robert Wyatt sometimes does this and it's amazing. I also put the vocals pretty far back in the mix as if they are just one instrument among many. I was listening to Brian Eno's record "before and after science" recently. He mixes his vocals really low also.
Do you have an opinion on the current landscape of computer-based music? It seems like most "IDM" (Whatever that is) leans more towards the type of stuff kid606 does, sample and drum machine heavy, than it does to quirky, cutesy, compositional music, although there's clearly a niche for it. Do you notice a distinction between the type of music being made in the states and in, say, Europe? Do you think there's a contingent of musicians with a similar musical aesthetic to you here?
I don't really listen to that much electronic music anymore actually. But there are certain directions other people are taking that I find interesting. I've only heard a little of The Books, but the way they integrate acoustic instruments and samples is interesting to me. It is kind of like a scrap book. Also, I think Kevin Blechdom writes really amazing songs. She integrates good song-writing with crazy MIDI programming. Also Max Tundra's stuff is amazing. Basically, I guess I respond to good song-writing first and to whatever electronic techniques are used second. My new songs are hardly even "electronic" since I basically play instruments into the computer and mix it without editing very much. Even on Dear Bicycle there are certain tracks with very little edits: On the Monorail, for example. Recently, I heard some of Sufjan Stevens' songs which I think are really nice. These days I probably feel closer to the kind of multi-instrumental work that he does than to electronic stuff.
Any thoughts on performing? I'm always curious as to how laptop-based musicians view the experience of performing live. Any particular challenges in relating to the audience? Any challenges in finding the right way to present your music?
Oh man, that's the million dollar question. My music is very much the product of me sitting alone in my room playing a bunch of instruments. It's really hard to transfer that experience to a live venue. I used to be concerned with being "honest" on stage... like actually making up things on the spot. I used to make an entirely new piece for every live performance! My album called "trebly" on the Italian label Mr. Mutt is a collection of those performances. But at this point, I think the audience just wants to hear music so now I do a kind of self-karaoke... playing along with pre-made tracks. It isn't ideal, but it's the best representation of what I'm up to musically right now. Next year I really want to put a big-band together and play my new songs. I'm really looking forward to that.
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