Michael Stasis
Currently residing in Los Angeles, prolific artist Michael Stasis recently graced the world with his second album for Arbutus Records with Gentle Cycle where the innovative audio inventor once again turns the pop tables on everything you formerly understood about conventional music. As with every release from Mr. Stasis, one enters the post-convention song cycle consortium with the spirit of adventure where you can always expect to hear something unlike you have every witnessed prior. But it is on this release that the idiosyncratic & enigmatic artist has forged what many are lauding as one of his most realized treasures to date. Stasis has expertly stitched together the most disparate stories of odd & strange encounters, observations & other existential items with his most grand arrangement that will have newcomers & longtime fans imagining the most wild of superlatives to describe Gentle Cycle. The result of recording the full-length on the stone room grounds of a Pennsylvanian church allowed the artist to tap into a liberating type of devotion that to unlock all free yet creatively cohesive sound portraits.
Gentle Cycle begins with the thunderous cathedral organ prelude of “Le Mat” that strings in the brilliant & timeless “Ruby Ring” that not only is earthed in a richly mixed arrangement where we are brought to the discovered “land of spring” where the most unusual time signatures control & command all the crackpot genius arrangements at work. Classic Michael Stasis signatures abound like “Trolls In The Virus” that takes you beyond the malware veil for the microbial lives of oddities that lurk in the makeup of pathogens where you are taken on an electric harmonized dark ride attraction that descends into the surreal. Vampirical LA night are recalled in the soft pop merry-go-round banshee trysts of “Afraid Of The Dark” that operates in the most unexpected & vivid lyric assortment that is paired with an arrangement of original near perfect pop.
Instrumental outlets of intrigue dazzle like the super-snazzy wonder that is “Missing The Faire”, or the Berlin trilogy floating Egyptian deity alluding electro-wonder of “Horus Online”, to the zig-zagging flashing waves of dissonance heard on “Zero The Stripper”. Harsh lessons in parenting are exhibited in the who teaches who what game in the super-catchy anthem “The Baby” that is frank about the responsibilities & compromises that are collected together in one weird brew. Messianic psychotropic trips abound on the classic cult pop cool of “JESUSOS”, where the artist/adventurer continues to move in an I can recreate every great pop trope possible mode with the power guitar rocking title track.
Which leads us to the grand finale with Michael Stasis’s mighty “Blue River” and our world premiere of the video from Chadwick Gibson—the creative founder of the Smart Objects art galley who further imagines through creative CGI illustrations the life arts of being caught in the ever rushing tributary of the day to day reality of modern life. The bouncing electric rhythms are treated to endless rows of solar panels that run parallel to life’s conformist freeways of infinite congestion. A computer animated Michael Stasis floats above the traffic jam while singing out maternal hymns whilst depicted as a 2D sprite decked out in Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz ruby red slippers with laptop & trench-coat. Soaring away from the rat race for natural landscapes & waters, we see the trade of the concrete universe for an abandon that leads our artist out to the great wild universe. Trading his earthly attire for a hot red Speedo (still complete with those red slippers), we watch our hero frolicking with the animals before being overtaken by those very natural elements that were sought in retreating from the developed civilization. “Blue River” plays against the contrasts of these worlds, where the truths of not being able to live the life that we want is entertained by exploring all the various hosts of alternate situations of other possibilities & more.
Michael provided us with the following thoughts on Chadwick Gibson’s video for “Blue River:
The collaboration for “Blue River” was strictly poetic, largely hands-off on my part. I trusted Chadwick to make something unique and fitting as I’m a big fan of his art. He built (two) working guillotines in college, his gallery in LA consistently shows great emerging artists, he is obsessed with technology and obsessive in general. For whatever reason, he was instantly drawn to “Blue River”; the last song from my new album Gentle Cycle.
As friends, Chadwick and I have done a lot of traveling to the desert and the winding rivers of Michigan, his home state. We often share ideas about the past and nature but we always return to LA (it’s home after all). I think both of us feel there is something unethical about the Thoreaus, Lumbersexuals and Libertarians of the world, those who would excuse themselves from the cosmic joke that is society. While the instinctual drive back to nature is real, it is ultimately a fantasy, potentially dangerous as it hews close to social Darwinism. What is nature anyway? What is real? There is a moral imperative for the artist to stay in the matrix and see where it leads, however blue it might make us.
The song carries an undeniable nostalgia with the gated 80s snare, references to the archetypal Mother, the Vedic concept of Maya, a magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem, a very child-like concept, which for me, persists into adulthood. I think through Sketchup and faceswapping, free software with inherent limitations, Chadwick has captured the stiff reality of growing up and being forced onto an ever more constrained path, like a doll that gets pushed around by technology, always with the promise of more freedom, total integration, but forever stuck in the uncanny valley.
Michael also penned an introductory manifesto for Gentle Cycle that provides a benediction for 2016/2017:
“Benedictions on this house!” said the old minister as he walked towards my childhood home, one hand in the air, the other clutching at bags of greasy McDonald’s, an offering of french fries spilling onto the rocky driveway.
That’s the first time I heard the term benediction. The next time was in an email from the editor of Impose Magazine, requesting I pen my own benediction for the years 2016/2017. A benediction (Latin: bene, well + dicere, to speak) is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service. If I may regard the album itself as an invocation for divine help, I’ll elaborate on each passage and maybe herein find an offering worth more than fast food.
Gentle Cycle is my new album. I recorded most of it at night in a round, stone building on the grounds of a church near my mother’s home in Pennsylvania. The structure sits on the edge of the Pennypack creek where I spent a lot of time growing up. I chose this place because it was cheap and quiet, two requirements for a contemplative project. Some additional tracking and mixing was done in Oakland at Santo with my dear friend Jason Kick.
The album begins with track One. It should really be track Zero, as the title of the piece is called “Le Mat” (the fool) and is represented by a ‘0’ in most tarot decks. It is the beginning. It is an organ. I recorded it in the nearby church, or so it seems.
The next song, the first proper song is called “Ruby Ring” and it’s not about anything 😉 It’s my favorite.
“Trolls In The Virus” is about insomnia, self-hatred, violence and global warming. If you can’t relate to this then you probably like yourself too much. It’s my second favorite song on the album.
The next song, “Afraid Of The Dark,” as I’ve said in another publication, is a love song to the impossible relationship. We hang on too long and are afraid to be alone. Solitude appears as a monster, but it shouldn’t. In fact, solitude is the most beautiful thing there is if you can learn how to manage it. Look to people who embrace the inner flame. They exist. You might need a mentor. I recommend meditating for twenty minutes each morning followed by caffeine and three pages of self-writing. Oh, and when you’re meditating, imagine powerful things like armor, a fire, a pink cloud of love… what we focus on becomes our reality.
“Missing The Faire” was recorded when I was literally missing the fair that was happening across the field from my recording studio. My Dad came over and we watched the fireworks through the trees. Then I made him leave because it was time to keep working.
“The Baby” is a fictional tale, a “what if” narrative. What if, at age twenty-two I had become a father but I wasn’t ready to give up video games and through neglect I let my baby die? It’s a tribute to the anxiety surrounding responsibility. The baby teaches the man, but does the man want to learn? There’s no resolution in this song because life is not actually a story, however badly we want it to be. You have to work hard to feed the flesh-baby so it doesn’t die. Stories can wait! This song is also an ode to my friends and family who have children. How DO you do it?
“JESUSOS” broken down is J-E-S-U-S.O.S. Save our ship, Jesus. Another story of a man who drinks a lot, drugs a lot, becomes a Christian.
Ah, the tantalizing title track. “Gentle Cycle” is Lou Reed does off-Broadway with some Muppets. It’s my New York song about Los Angeles. I lived in New York for four years and never really felt at home though I so wanted to. I thought, maybe if I make a New York-sounding song people will think I was really important in the theater scene or something. I wasn’t.
“Horus Online” simply states you need a break. A beautiful break. Conceptually it relates back to “Ruby Ring,” which is strange because that song isn’t about anything 😉
“Cape Howl” was inspired by a dear friend for whom I had a thing. Love. It wasn’t meant to be, but once I accepted it, decided to write a song asking what if I couldn’t accept it and I became an obsessive Stephen King creep who lived on a peninsula, drank each night at a place called the Lighthouse Bar, thought only of his ‘drowned’ love and turned his torment into a soundtrack for a modern retelling of Orpheus? This is my most song-y song on the album. It has a pretty cohesive narrative.
“Zero The Stripper”—this piece was originally called “Atlantic City” because it sounded like a slot machine and I had just won $100. I changed the name after meeting a stripper named Zero in Las Vegas. I thought it was such a cool and sad thing to call oneself. She was the first stripper to tell me she hates stripping. I asked her what she’d rather do and she said “graphic designer.” I also like that it sounds like what actual zeros might sound like if they danced.
“Blue River”—This article already has an extensive response to this song.
In Operti…
Darkness. Depression. 2016. There has always been darkness, always suffering. The difference now is how much of it we are exposed to. It is truly unprecedented, a revelation, and I’m not sure our little psyches were built to take so much truth. Knowledge Is Power, they say. But what is Power Without Action? How much darkness is the right amount? Am I consuming the right amount of darkness to placate my imaginary friends on the internet? Have I been rendered totally ineffective by my commitment to knowledge? It feels as if the darkness will surely consume me, but I wonder if it must. It will… IF I CONTINUE TO CONSUME IT:
Stop. Breathe. Read the news every couple of days if you have to. WHAT IS AWARENESS WITHOUT ACTION? Great, so you know what’s happening in the world. You’re a black swan, a sleepwalker in line for psychic vampires. And you could have been anything.
Don’t despair. Start a self-writing practice. Meditate. Return to yourself, be “selfish” as an artist in order that you might share your insights and maybe then you can begin to help people. Or quit what you’re doing and become an activist. Now. Start an intentional community. Cook with your neighbors. Computers make us feel weird because they are weird and the people who invented them were weird. You don’t have to live in the feed. Get to know yourself, AFK. You won’t do it reading this. Take a break. Listen to Gentle Cycle while you sweep the floor.
I wish you peace, love, and most of all STRENGTH in the new year!
~MS
Also take in the Brittany Reeber video for Michael Stasis’s single “Afraid Of The Dark” that stars Katie Folger & Stasis acting out all the affectionately absurd lyrics, with styling by Athena Denos. Part art installation, part performance piece art, part spectacle; the infinitely creative artist continues to build a world that is truly all his own.
Michael Stasis’s new album Gentle Cycle is available now from Arbutus Records.
