Erstellt am: 28. 4. 2014 - 06:00 Uhr

Holographic Listening

Artist Of The Week: Stream the new Mile Me Deaf album "Holography" in its entirety.

Wolfgang Moestl’s guided tour through "Holography"

The title of this album refers to the holographic principle, quite a new theory by physicists, basically claiming that our universe is a hologram of a much flatter universe, which to me is one of the weirdest theories of weird theories about our universe and existence ever developed. In this scenario this record, this lines you are reading and even you are just holograms, so these songs where holographic even before I called the record like that. I'm attracted by such things because I'm bored to death by reality. That's the reason why most of my songs deal with long gone starlets, mind-expanding events, trashy B-movies or parallel universes. I listened to the album track by track once more and would like to share some trivia that matters to me, or I consider interesting. For each track there is a person or character on the album artwork that somehow affected either the song’s music or lyrics.

Syd Barrett

1. Shiver

Cover art character: Syd Barrett

The album kicks off with a quite dark song. I call it dark, because it was written on the day after doomsday 2012. It started as a 4-track experiment with drums and cowbells but I really liked the repetition of the melody, so I shaped it and ended up with a 6 minute jam with myself. First it was way more guitar driven, but in the studio I used Yuri Landman's* "Homeswinger" guitar to replace the guitar riff, which gave the song a kind of mystical edge and this was quite important for the mood of the lyrics, written largely during our trip to Japan. It's roughly about exploiting others a million times for your own pleasure. Literally it's about the drugs, but you don't have to be a junkie to act like a dick.

* Yuri Landman is a dutch luther constructing exceptional guitars for artists like Lee Ranaldo, Liars, Blood Red Shoes or Health.

Leonard Susskind

2. Artificial

Cover art character: Leonard Susskind in a chipmunk costume

This is the first song written for "Holography" and actually the only song on the record directly connected to the holographic principle and deals with timeless questions about life and existence. The continuous hippie-esque search for something not artificial. The first demo was really rough, a bit grungy, but it already had this country-esque vibe too. I always heard a pedal steel guitar all over the song and I'm really glad that we could get Martin Siewert* to play it. There are actually not that many people in austria familiar with the brain-bending playing technique of this instrument. At least not many people we know. The final part also features some buzz saw noises I recorded outside my Viennese flat. I grew up next to a sawmill so this is a familiar sound to me, probably one of the first sounds I remember, but to hear this rural noise in the middle of Vienna kinda freaked me out. You can take a man out of suburbia, but not suburbia out of a man.

* Martin Siewert is a Vienna based musician and producer. He is member of the experimental rock band Radian (Thrill Jockey).

Sky Ferreira

3. Macrosleep

Cover art character: Sky Ferreira

The last song written for "Holography" and one of the two songs recorded completely in my bedroom, which I found important to do, since MMD started as a bedroom thing and in a way always will be. Kind of. I made numerous demo's for that one and it actually evolved from a folky Neil Young tune. This escapism saga's adolescent main character is unable to free from its gilded cage and leave champagne, coke and sweet Mary Jane. Wants to come down and know where to land.

E.T.

4. Science Fiction 1998

Cover art character: E.T.

Like 90% of all songs I ever wrote, I wrote this one in my hometown Oberdorf, while partying with my parents (I know that sounds bad, but they're ok). At some point they went out to buy another crate of beer and during their absence i grabbed my toy guitar and had this riff in a second. The words were there just as fast as the melody and I guess we talked about the past before, so I started to sing about that. In 1998 I used to play "Resident Evil" all summer long before I started to attend a new school in September. I hated it but started to gain interest in ground breaking new technical devices, such as mobile phones or the internet. I was psyched by chat rooms and that kind of stuff. Chatting with people on the other side of the planet was something I was really obsessed with, and at the same time I got more and more disconnected to the people around me. Classic geek. So it's basically about future Wolfgang having an online chat with this 1998 freak kid, although I hate straight forward autobiographical lyrics. During the drum recording, Peter* re-enacted the music video of Blink 182's "What's my age again?" in the studio, which gave the song some extra spice.

* Peter is playing bass in Mile Me Deaf and Sex Jams

Hunter S. Thompson

5. Out of Breath at Ego Death

Cover art character: Hunter S. Thompson

This is a more classic MMD song, referring to my "songwriting" roots. Loud parts with slide guitar kindermelodies, quiet parts with monotone vocals plus freakout noise solo, and it all gets along with four chords. Living the dream! It's about experiencing your own death and floating through space and time, without body, soul or memory and trying to catch your ride back home in this state of mind. The last part features a poem of Maya Angelou.

Ringo Starr & George Harrison

6. Domestics

Cover art character: George and Ringo

Yet again a song affected by an odd episode with my dad, debating all night if there was something like a less-important Beatle. The next day I recorded this on a four-track in my old room with heavy headache and it's just me beatboxing and playing these few chords over it. I know I've probably gone too far with the poor quality here, but I didn't want to re-record it because I knew I already captured it right and there was nothing essential to add. I also wanted it to leave it that way because the lyrics are about duties that suck. Heavily influenced by the time I used to sleep all day and did night shifts at an assembly line to effort my extravagant lifestyle back then. With the beat I tried to imitate the machine's sound I was working on 8 hours a night.

Katey Sagal

7. Motor Down

Cover art character: Katey Sagal

This is a song about the total deconstruction of a touring rock band. It's about a bunch of wannabe rock stars dreaming of the life of dinosaurs. I used a lot of Einstuerzende Neubauten noise on that one. Basically just trash beaten up or drill machines buzzing near guitar pickups. It might be subtle but you can catch it when you're listening really close. Musically it's actually a one-of-a-kind thing for me. I think I never wrote such song before. I don't know why, but to me it's different.

"Macho Man" Randy Savage

8. Gold Kid

Cover art character: "Macho Man" Randy Savage

The annoying synth melody is actually a ringtone, composed with a free ringtone editor and it is supposed to be a song in the tradition of Liquido's "Narcotic". We recorded the drums of the louder part in a really big old wine cellar and added much of the room signal to the mix, which underlines the up and down among chorus and verse. It supposed to sound like a rollercoaster ride since the lyrics deal with crashing fame. Again.

Lassie

9. War Bonding

Cover art character: Lassie

This sure is the minimalist track. It's going along with drums, bass, a single acoustic guitar and of course the prominent feature of a cowbell. It is more or less the only love song on this record, and it tells the story of an underachieving too-cool-for-school kid falling in love with a hard working arms manufacturer. Living in two different worlds, this couple has to deal with rigorous parents and peace activists.

Gelsomina

10. True Blood

Cover art character: Gelsomina

During the recording session Dolph* threw away his sticks after a few takes, screaming "i got blisters on my fingers" and left the studio for one week. When he came back we already decorated his drums with flowers and “thank you” cards. It deals with sexual object-ification and exploitation of women in mass media.

* Rudolf aka Rudi aka Dolph is playing drums in Mile Me Deaf and Sex Jams

Reinhold Messner

11. Cryptic Boredom Rites

Cover art character: Reinhold Messner

This may sound like an epic guitar layer overkill, but it's actually just one guitar, beside me screaming in various pickups. I overdubbed tons of guitar feedback and noise-loops but during the mixing session I liked the uhhhs and ahhhs through the pickup the most and ended up with muting all my guitar layers. So now it's just LaLa's* big big muff guitar and my hysteric howls. I was wondering if Austria's ancestors where probably the weak nomadic people that couldn't go any further north or south, trapped betweet the mountains. And as the lyrics assume: “Their rites are dead but we are living them without a plan”. It's sorta Anti-Folk.

* Laura is playing guitar and synths in Mile Me Deaf, Die Eternias and Ja, Panik

Lady Gaga

12. Third From The Sun

Cover art character: Lady Gaga in a skeleton costume

I wrote this in the summer of 2013 during a heat wave when I locked myself up at home for a few days, feeling like an anchorite living in a log cabin or something. I remember slacking around, watching "The Twilight Zone" and eating canned vine leaves all day. I didn't answer any phone calls or emails and even darkened the room. That's an old summer vacation tradition of mine. A kind of break with reality and fresh oxygen. At some point I started to write songs (all of them sounded like the lost soundtrack of Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste"), and after a few blunders I started to hammer on my toy-piano and all of a sudden I had this song in an epic 15 minute demo version, repeating the line "I am willing to steal until we fight" over and over again. The main part is built upon one chord, beautified with the lovely horn ensemble around Martin Zrost*, who also did the transcription. Lyrically this one's really hard to interpret since I can't remember the development of the topic or words, but there are ties to Ulrich Seidl's movie "Hundstage" and to strange conspiracy theories.

* Austrian composer

Artist Of The Week

Christian Pausch about Mile Me Deaf´s latest album "Holography".