Where other electronic ensembles ruminate, Geographer has already soared. The brainchild of Mike Deni, the San Francisco electropop project is at it again with his latest EP, Alone Time, following a successful PledgeMusic campaign. Whittling the list of prospective songs down to five wasn’t easy, with upwards of 100 having been considered by Deni before settling on the handful that adorn Alone Time. The five that were ultimately chosen reflect a greater overall theme that is prevalent throughout each song, being songs that reflect a particular loneliness that Deni thrives in when he isn’t out touring with Geographer.
The genius of Alone Time is directly rooted in these themes as they meld into and mesh with the standard Geographer delivery. The project was never known for washing over Deni’s vocals with waves of synths, but incorporating analog and electronic layers alike in such a way that they swirl around his delivery. The world that Geographer creates in tandem with each other is one that is still chock full of the electropop innovations that Deni is known and loved for, but the spotlight here shines over how they envelop his gorgeous vocals and allow them to evoke such a poignancy rich with feeling.
“Even when we’re together, we’re alone in our own worlds. We send out signals to each other and signals come back, but there’s really only room for one. Despite that, we surround ourselves with people, and we try to let them in, try to find ones that will fit well beside us,” Deni says. “This EP is the product of two years of solitude and over 100 demos, falling in love with someone far away, and watching that relationship crumble from the same distance. And ultimately, it’s an exploration of the solitary nature of a life that I still can’t quite get in front of. It’s a very personal collection of songs.”
“Musically, it represents an obsession with pop music that went to its furthest reaches and boomeranged back again into making not just lyrics, but sounds, that matter. I want to make music for a reason. I want every song I write to have a good reason to exist. I don’t ever want to make a song just because I can. I want it to deserve a place in the world.”