http://vimeo.com/michaelnhat/allihearissilence
(microwaving the grissle)
This album started out as The November Album which i was planning to release in november. The great change in mood and setting between this album and the first one is vast. So, to prepare listeners i made plans to create from scratch an EP and call it Swimming to Cambodia and release it in the summer. While making this EP, it quickly became a full length. Then i decided fuck it let’s just put all the songs from the November Album on it now because i know that when fall comes i propably won’t be as excited about them and i’ll shelf them. I am very glad i have made that decision.
Great title? thank you i actually stole it. i was at old bank dvd about 2 years ago and i seen the title and imagined my own interpretation. That Swimming to cambodia meant to do the impossible and absurd for the love of someone. Then i actually saw the film and it was nothing like that, and that’s fine and dandy with me.
I consider this my “white” album. I do not expect a commercial embracement of this whatsoever. Instead i expect a slow appreciation under the radar, kind of like Paul’s Boutique when it came out. It was years ahead of it’s time. I expect the usual stale format conservatives and ophrah winfrey traditionalists to ostracize it like was done to Okay Computer at first “…this is more like music to cut your wrist to..” again is fine with me.
If the first album moved your mind and feet, this one should move your mind and maybe heart? no dancing shoes required this time around. A return to form if you will. 90% of the music on here is from 2001/2002.
I know you’ve heard me say plenty of times, “when i buy a _____ album i want to hear what i already have expectations of that artist”. One of the reasons we like so and so is because they made this song or album and when the next comes we want more of that but different right? As a consumer it always pissed me off when artists/bands changed their direction and i just bought their new i wish i was a surfer album and i was expecting some shut the fuck up and swallow your own severed tongue stuff. So why am i doing just that? Changing my sound and contradicting myself?
I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself. This is only my 2nd album. In translation that means i don’t even have a sound yet except… hissy tape music. But let’s be honest, there’s something about me you can’t put your finger on, but you know and i know very well it’s a michael nhat project, and that’s consistent enough. When you release your 2nd album there’s two great changes that occur within your listeners. One there are people who now have expectations. Two you lose the element of surprise. I like to think i defeated both, but who knows, maybe everyone will say they like the first one better like they do with a lot of artsits because of their expectations. And maybe the album is prematurely ahead of it’s time. And the problem with that is.. there’s no one else here to enjoy it with me.
In the words of Werner Herzog on Harmony Korine’s avant garde filmmaking not making any enormous waves and changes in cinema is… “So what?” that’s what i have to say to that.
Sincerely,
Michael
TEN-HEADED SKELETON 