Geographer Releases New Album ‘A Mirror Brightly’; Listen Now

Today, synth-pop visionary Geographer shares his new record, A Mirror Brightly . For the album, Mike Deni assumed the role of thinking man’s anthropologist, picking through the wreckage around us in a world increasingly ensnared in everything from religion to social media. While it is still deeply personal, it’s not simply autobiographical like his previous releases. Explaining, “This record takes that existential shock but explores it through humanity as a whole, rather than just me as an individual.” The title, he adds, “ refers to the lights of the phone shining in our eyes, blinding us to ourselves, obscuring the truth. It also refers to the beauty of this life. That is the glimmer of hope on the record. It leaves the option open that one day we might turn the light back away from our faces to illuminate the darkness that surrounds us.”

Mostly self-produced, he tapped Taylor Locke (Rooney, Linda Thompson, The New Pornographers), James Riotto (John Vanderslice, Samantha Crain), and Daniel Chae (Run River North) for some finishing touches. The record will include already released singles, “ The Light In The Dark,” “Learn How To Lose: Act 1,”  “Everyone,” “The Burning Handle,” “Van Halen,” “I Don’t Remember It Starting,” “One/Other” and “You Never Know.”

To accompany, Deni filmed a stunning video for the new track, “Got It Wrong,” which takes the emotional storytelling of a tear-jerking film like Old Yeller and reimagines it in a setting like Color’s Studio in Berlin.  Mike adds, “ This video is the last day that I spent with an old lamp before replacing it with a new lamp.  I actually wrote it as an IKEA spec commercial.  No one asked me to, and I don’t make commercials, but I just thought, what a beautiful commercial.  Bring the audience into an alternate universe where people have deep and complicated, somewhat parental relationships with their lamps, and show someone giving their lamp one last perfect day before its lightbulb dims forever.  I can’t believe everyone was on board with the idea.  But I think they all saw what I was going for, we were so in sync after making four other music videos together.  The Director of Photography, Christian Klein, really created that balance between the two worlds that I was going for.  I was inspired visually by Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, those scenes that are plays that are alive.  And somehow it fits the song perfectly.  I hope someone who watch it will come away pondering the attachments we form and whether their arbitrariness is beautiful or reductive.”

WATCH + SHARE “GOT IT WRONG” NOW

To celebrate the release, Geographer just headlined a sold-out Popscene show at Rickshaw Stop in his former hometown of San Francisco and will continue the party in Los Angeles at Lodge Room on March 9th. Tickets are on sale now. The headline shows follow a fall tour supporting Small Black on a sold-out North American run. 

WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING ABOUT A MIRROR BRIGHTLY: 

a dramatic slice of storytelling” – Flood Magazine

“a radiant, beautifully raw reckoning between love and power.” – Atwood Magazine

” lushly kinetic soundscapes that have remained an undercurrent across Geographer’s discography” – Grimy Goods

” atmospheric pop grounded in naked emotion and deep contemplation.” – Buzzbands.la

“bright and warm” – Earmilk

“up-tempo 80s-inspired synth over driving drumbeats and Mike Deni’s soaring falsetto.” – Northern Transmissions 

“lots of soulful melodies and emotive falsettos atop captivating electro sounds” – SF Station
“atmospheric and existentially-laden synth pop” – Under The Radar