Monthly Archives: May 2010

After working on it for over three years (!), my post-Christian nihilist pop-opera, The Little Death: Vol. 1 is out now on New Amsterdam Records! It features myself and Mellissa Hughes on vocals, and James Moore and Mike Gurfield on Guitar and Trumpet!

Here is New Amsterdam’s description:

The Little Death: Vol. 1 is an ambitious new work that fuses bombastic electro-pop hooks, frenetically chopped break beats, hypnotic lyrics, and apocalyptic Christian imagery. Holding these disparate elements together is an unconventional narrative that follows two characters, Boy (Matt Marks) and Girl (Mellissa Hughes), on a journey through the world of Fundamentalist Evangelism, as they cope with repressed sexuality in a modern world. The sample-heavy work draws on musical references that echo the character’s sexual-religious confusion, including pop songs and gospel standards with evocative titles (“He Touched Me” and “When God Dips His Love In My Heart”). Marks took most of the sampled material from his own collection of 1970s gospel albums and classic hip-hop and soul recordings. Using a DIY approach, he produced the album using only a couple of microphones and a laptop running Ableton Live.

You can listen to the entire album streaming on the New Amsterdam site. And you can buy it here on Amazon or iTunes!

Here are a couple excerpts from some early reviews:

The Big City:

The Little Death is music theater, pop/rock opera really, and tremendously accomplished. Marks made the whole thing himself and plays all the instruments, except for guitar and trumpet, and sings the part of Boy with the excellent and versatile Mellissa Hughes as Girl. The music captures pop styles in the way a musical does, by hitting certain numbers, but there’s nothing wrong with that approach (Urinetown is a great example of how well the standard style can work) and in any case the music is just so good that I found myself strolling through Brooklyn this morning humming ‘OMG I’m Shot’ to myself, certainly the best sock-hop-dance-pop-driving-rock song about being shot ever written. The Little Death also offers bits of staggered punk and erotic rock ballad, but in a nutshell Marks works very much like Mikel Rouse, but more explosively intense and exuberant, with touches of Carl Stone. Making music in this theatrical style means connecting with, but not pandering to, the audience, there’s some obligation to give the listener enough of what they may expect or be familiar with as a bit of legerdemain before hitting them with the goods.

The Indie Handbook:

No, I don’t know what a “post-Christian nihilist pop opera” is exactly, but that’s what they tell me Matt Marks‘ new piece/album The Little Death: Vol 1 (New Amsterdam) is and music like this doesn’t come along every day—or ever—so I am more than willing to accept the moniker they’ve chosen. In my mind, it’s what Eric Whitacre’s Paradise Lost could have been were it more concise and beat-centric. Because there are some killer beats on this album, beginning with the “Penetration Overture”, into the climax of “OMG I’m Shot” (one of the many incarnations of the petit mortmotif), and pretty much everywhere else.

Through extensive sampling, dubstep, breakbeats, and evocation of 1970s gospel, The Little Death tells the story of Boy (sung by Marks) and Girl (Mellissa Hughes), two teenagers exploring their relationship in the context of American Evangelicalism. As such, it is an album that connects on multiple levels. At turns dramatic, ridiculous, beautiful, and just plain fun, there is plenty to please the casual listener (I have been singing “OMG I’m Shot” to myself all day)

The Little Death: Vol. 1 will be having a two-week run this July at The Ontological Theater in NYC. The specific dates are July 8-11 and 14-17. This will be the most extensive version of the live opera yet. It will be directed once again by the fantastic Rafael Gallegos.

AL

MOST…

HERE!!

One more day folks! Pre-order on Amazon NOW! Also, here is the link to purchase the album on iTunes (link won’t work until tomorrow, btw).

In the meantime, there are soon to be a plethora of interviews with Mellissa Hughes and I about the project, which I will heartily link to. We did a fun one today with Ellis Ludwig-Leone from New Amsterdam. Here’s an excerpt:

And while I’m at it, here’s one more shot from our video shoot. This one from the Hamptons!

It’s almost here folks! Pre-order on Amazon now!

Also, stay tuned for news on our upcoming two-week run at the Ontological Theater in July!

Oh, and there’s a video coming soon by the masters at Satan’s Pearl Horses!

Plus, in case you haven’t yet, grab these two free downloads!

I Don’t Have Any Fun

I Like Stuff

So I don’t mean to, ya know:

but I thought I’d weigh in once more on the ‘alt/indie/post/anti/whatever-classical’ debate, this time on the question as to whether it’s even relevant to discuss (a discussion on which is of course an awesome paradox).

Dennis Desantis weighed in on the ‘why are we even discussing this?’-tip:

The only thing that’s ever mattered about any piece of music, ever, is what it sounds like. Martin Bresnick used to talk about how a good piece of music should make you check for your wallet; you should feel like you got your ass kicked after listening to it.

How it got made only matters if what got made matters. No one gives a shit about your craft if your music sucks. Likewise, there’s plenty of music that makes you check for your wallet, even if it doesn’t hold up to analysis.

So what makes music good? What makes music relevant?

The answer is, “who cares?” Figure out what you like to hear. Then go listen to it and make more.

“Figure out what you like to hear. Then go listen to it and make more”. Words for a composer to live by. And of course as a composer I totally agree, but that is only one perspective. As I commented on his blog, “If I thought about all this shit while I was trying to create I simply wouldn’t create. I know this because I used to and I didn’t.”. Yes, anyone who is deeply considering these matters while writing a piece should probably stop. The alt-classical discussion isn’t primarily a discussion by composers though, it’s a discussion about composers and their compositions.

If you asked a football player what he was thinking about as he ran through a wall of linebackers he’d probably look at you strangely and say, “why the hell would I be thinking in a time like that?”. Should that stop the sports commentators from discussing what incredible maneuvers he did in the five seconds that made up the play? Of course not. But the more important answer is, should doesn’t matter. They’re going to discuss what they are going to discuss, no matter what the players involved think.

Should Greg Sandow, Allan Kozinn, Anne Midgette, or Steve Smith care if composers think “alt” as a label is tacky, or the discussion is futile, or that over-thinking your genre limitations is stifling to ones creativity? Hell no. They’re doing their jobs, and if they worried excessively about how composers would feel about any of these matters they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs any better than we could.

I believe it is healthy for this discussion to have some input from some composers involved. We wouldn’t want it to be solely framed by writers and critics. So I will add the Marks Corollary to the Desantis formula:

If you feel like discussing the current state of music do so. If not, then don’t. If you find it messes with your ability to create then stop. But others are going to discuss it and define it whether you like it or not.