nathan michel

NEWS

(7.1.07)I got a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton.

(6.21.06 first day of summer) lots of new news: fi1rst, go to *this* myspace page for semi-frequent updates.

se2cond, I have a lot of shows coming up including a few with a new band that includes amber and gia papini. We are called Hospitality. I will also be playing some festivals in Scandinavia at the end of July, which I am very excited about. here are the infos:

July 9, 2006 8:00 PM - Stain Bar, Brooklyn, NY

July 10, 2006 10:30 PM - Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn, NY

July 15, 2006 9:00 PM - The Lucky Cat, Brooklyn, NY

July 21, 2006 ELEKTRONISK JAZZJUICE 06 (Århus International Jazz Festival), Århus, DENMARK )

July 22, 2006 TBA in Gothenberg, SWEDEN

July 23, 2006 Gallery Somewhere, Copenhagen, DENMARK

July 29, 2006 Safe as Milk Festival, Haugesund, NORWAY,

fin3ally, check out an article about me *here* from Stop Smiling Magazine

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(1.26.06) still no news

(11.2.05) no news

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(5.2.05) click *here* to listen to a radio feature on the beast produced by andi toma from mouse on mars... there are also some MP3 excerpts from the record.

Nathan_Michel_Interview.mp3 (4.7MB)

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(4.23.05) The Beast will be released on tuesday april 26. also...two shows coming up with DAT Politics:

Monday May 9 2005 New York at Rothko

Wednesday May 11 2005 Boston at P.A.'s Lounge

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(1.14.05) There is a lot of new news: mainly my new record called "The Beast" will be out jointly on Sonig and Skipp records in April! There will also be a Japanese version on Headz with two bonus tracks. Also I will be playing four shows in Europe in March with my new "band": Amber Papini on vocals/keyboard, myself guitar/vocals and the computer on other sounds. Here are the infos:

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Tuesday March 15 2005 Amsterdam (NL), Steim with Gustav

Thursday March 17 2005 Roubaix (FR), La Condition Publique
with DJ Elephant Power and Skipp DJ

Friday March 18 2005 Bruxelles (B) Le Bonheur 4PM in store performance...then concert at Cafe Walvis with Sun OK Papi K.O. live and DJ Frank Dommert

Saturday March 19 2005 Duesseldorf (D), Salon des Amateurs/Kunsthalle with DJ Elephant Power

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there is also a fantastic 7" out now on Tomlab of two songs from the Beast (A to B and Planet)..

..also the premiere of "The Beast Transcriptions" for 15 instruments is February 22 in Princeton. These are arrangments I made of three instrumental songs from the beast record.

(5.14.04) I've finished recording my new album which should be out Fall 2004 on Skipp Records. It has some very mellow songs and some very righteous ones also! It's not even really electronic music! ....I play drumset, marimba, guitars, melodica, piano, organ, and other things! There is an extensive interview I did at Pixelsurgeon. check it out *here*. and the WFMU interview I did with Donna Summer is archived *here*.

(1.10.04) I'll be opening up for Mr. Donna Summer at Tonic in NYC on February 15. please attend! In other news: I am currently working on a piece for electric guitar, piano, percussion, and computer. i'm gonna play the guitar and computer parts. The piece will be premiered in late April in pRinceton.

(11. 12. 03) I am performing a harmonica solo and some other stuff friday november 14, 2003 at terrace club in princeton. I am also recording a live performance on Donna Summer's radio show on WFMU to be aired on December 10 at 11 PM. also...premiere of "Trebly" for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone and piano is november 22 in Taplin Hall, Princeton.

(10. 19. 03) nathan will do an interiew on wprb radio monday, october 20 at 4 PM or so, and he'll be doing a little performance on 10.21.03 at terrace club as part of the ffmup series.

(9. 12. 03) after spending much of the summer in europe, where he did some recording with DAT Politics for their new record, nathan is back in NJ for skool. Forthcoming projects include the performance of trebly by the non-sequitur ensemble in November and the release of a recording of live Max performances also called trebly on the Italian label Mr. Mutt in October. finally, nathan has a track on the new Skipp records compilation which will be out in September. Other artists on the compilation include DAT Politics, Felix Kubin, Kevin Blechdom, Aelters, Scratch Pet Land, goodiepal, Secret Mommy, Hitz Express, Royal Park Trio, Anne Laplantine and amazing Skipp graphic animations to play on your computer!

some past events:

Thursday May 22, 2003 Friendship House Philadelphia with DAT Politics and Lucky Dragons Tuesday May 20,2003 Taplin Auditorium Princeton, NJ Performance of new piece for six instruments called "Shelter" Wednesday, May 7 2003. Terrace Club, Princeton, NJ..Saturday, January 25 2003 at Tonic in NYC with Kid606 and Shadetek...Friday, January 10 2003...premiere of fanfare written for the bicentennial of the post and courier of charleston, sc...performed by the charleston symphony brass quintet sunday, november 17, 2002...the village tavern, mt. pleasant, SC with cex, numbers, and stars as eyes...part of the tigerbeat6 "paws across america!" tour.videominuto festival, italy in september 2002....one-minute video by elec done to "four" by nathan michel friday, august 30th 2002 at subtonic, nyc with kevin blechdom

PRESS

"a pop monster!"-Intro Magazine

"The Beast probably comes as close to sounding like the inside of the songwriter's brain as anything you'll come across." - Splendid

"daring yet highly listenable...a genuine sense of wide-eyed wonder, a childlike fascination with each new musical shape and juxtaposition." - Pitchfork

"Michel's approach is both challenging, sophisticated and refreshingly simple." -Montreal Mirror

Stop Smiling (USA) All Music (USA) Splendid Magazine (USA) Pitchfork (USA) Goon Magazine (Germany) Berliner Zeitung (Germany) Blow Up Magazine (Italy) Spex Magazine (Germany) Weekly Dig (Boston) In the Mix (Australia) Textura (Canada) Montreal Mirror (Canada) Gaz-eta (Poland) Octopus (France) Intro Magazine [Feature] (Germany) Panorama (Norway) Taz (Germany) Nojesguiden (Sweden) ARA (Austria) Berlin [030] (Germany) Intro Magazine [Review] (Germany) Basebog (Italy)

also look for a feature in Grooves Magazine Issue #17 and Spex Magazine

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Reviews of Dear Bicycle:

The Tigerbeat6 artist roster is rife with oddballs, but Nathan Michel is perhaps the oddest of them all. He’s far removed from the cyber-punk image of many of his labelmates, a pure music nerd who is currently working to earn his PhD in composition from Princeton University and simultaneously reveling in the joyous discovery of the power of the computer as both compositional tool and instrument unto itself. Michel manages to heavily subvert the pull of academia with a peculiar, ever-present lightheartedness and an extremely quirky avant-garde pop sensibility. His particular brand of electronic music sports a great awareness of the work of his predecessors and contemporaries as well as drawing on many non-electronic influences, while also flaunting a refined harmonic sensibility that is far more advanced than many other pop compu-composers.
Dear Bicycle is Michel’s second album. The music of his debut, ABC DEF, suggested what DAT Politics might sound like if they worked up their chops as players and threw a little guitar into the mix. Dear Bicycle contains a number of excellent instrumental numbers reminiscent of ABC DEF, but for much of the album Michel has focused on crafting quirky, abstract pop songs, often replete with strange, yet mild-mannered vocals. The songs retain his glitchy, synth-heavy sonic palette and off-kilter phrasing, but are more tightly structured and rhythmically contained than the instrumental tracks.
Michel’s classically informed formal education is readily apparent in the pop tune context (to call them ‘pop’ is really a stretch), but he still manages to smother the academic in a goofy and nonsensical sense of humor that is so innocent and unthreatening you can’t help but suspect some mischief lurking somewhere out of sight. On “Theme Song” he cheekily quotes “The Entertainer” on a goopy synthesizer. “Star Spangled” uses samples of the harpsichord from a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations to construct a hokey, ham-fisted chord progression (a fun feature is the album’s detailed liner notes which reveal instruments and samples used on each track). “Glide” takes a page straight out of the Frank Zappa songbook, somewhere between Hot Rats and Overnite Sensation, with a vocal line that verges on virtuosic – and in place of Zappa’s gruff baritone is Michel’s soft, uninflected high tenor. The song stays here for exactly one verse, before suddenly mutating into a keyboard vamp that sounds like classic Bruce Hornsby.
Michel’s vocals are not his greatest strength – no matter what is being sung, his voice retains the same flat, somewhat shy and silly quality. His vocal melodies often times sound too contrived, too well-thought-out, and his mode of singing is too tongue-in-cheek to make any lasting emotional impact. The particular resonance of Michel’s voice, which is furthermore mixed quietly, renders a good deal of the lyrics unintelligible – perhaps this is intentional, but it grows frustrating. Some of the vocals do make for nerdy-fun listening – “Tell” sports seriously tricky rhythmic figures and time-signature shifts, while “I Delight in What is Right” is a catchy tune with a neat title that sounds like a sullen chemistry class suddenly burst into song, with a choreographed laboratory dance routine to match (here’s HCl in your eye, Britney!)
The music accompanying the vocals is always excellent, which unfortunately serves to underscore the relative shortcomings of the vocals themselves. The opening “Theme Song” sounds like, well, the theme song to a ’70 s cartoon about a distracted chemistry nerd who lampoons as a superhero. Without Michel’s vocals in the mix, the novelty is transformed into a sublimely manic good time, with every note and beat squirming to jump out of its seat and run pell-mell across the track. “2000” is a truly beautiful composition – a gently pulsing low-end ambience underlying the sound of water dripping delicately onto pebbles closely mic-ed, and in the foreground a touching mutron-and-reverb-drenched guitar line which is carefully taken apart and put back together again over the duration of the track.
If you count yourself a Frank Zappa fan, there is probably a special place in your heart for the music of Nathan Michel. But like Zappa’s music, and particularly his vocals, novelty can only carry even the most complex song so far. Fortunately, as with Zappa, novelty is only one aspect of Michel’s music, and arguably a less significant aspect than it was for his predecessor. There are elements of new music and fusion-era jazz tucked away Dear Bicycle. And for the adventurous follower of popular electronic music, there is ample material here to provide a welcome reprieve from the über-repetitive IDM situation. (review is *here*)

-Dusted Magazine

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In this, the age of the laptop, mobility and fluidity have become watchwords of the modern electronic composer. An idea is only as valid as the speed with which it can be documented and processed. The art of collage and cut-up have been present for a great deal longer in the literary and visual arts world; it's only been with the recent advancement of computer technology and sound destroying/rebuilding software plugins that music has been so democratized. The last tethers to the recording studios of yore have been severed, and the musician is free to draw inspiration from sources all around him-- the terrestrially mundane can be elevated to the celestially sublime; all it takes is imagination and familiarity with one's favorite software.
Nathan Michel is counted among the increasing number of these electronic alchemists. Though somewhat obscured by his higher profile compatriots at Tigerbeat6, he's shown a remarkable penchant for daring yet highly listenable cut-and-paste. There is, of course, the typical madcap grabs at popular music, as the ghosts of club funk and the knowledge/acceptance of IDM form the skeleton of Michel's abstracted architecture. But what separates this recording from most of his contemporaries' efforts is his genuine sense of wide-eyed wonder, a childlike fascination with each new musical shape and juxtaposition that drifts by as the album unfolds. There's a palpable feeling of discovery on each track, as though Michel himself were delighted by every gurgle, pop and coo.
Recently, musicians operating within this genre have been increasingly unable to resist adding sung vocals, often to weak and or/embarrassing result. Nathan Michel is again an exception; his vocals occupy the same relative space as any of the other delicate carnival attractions he's displayed. I get the sense that he's less concerned with why he should be suggesting these moods and textures, and more appropriately with how they sound in context. This golden rule, which should be the common denominator of electronic exploration, is often forgotten or temporarily ignored, in favor of progress and novelty.
"Magellan Fields" is a perfect example of the spontaneity and fearlessness this album evokes. Slightly detuned acoustic guitars are cut and re-assembled (a la The Books) to form a comfortable nesting place for a gorgeous, unprocessed electric guitar solo. It's a nice juxtaposition, but more importantly, it's refreshing to hear this familiar voice in a modern electronic recording. The landscape is shifted, the redundant and conventional is suddenly made fresh again, and expectation is turned on its ear.
Electronic music is possibly on the verge of a serious progression. The old classics are just that: wonderful historical landmarks in the pantheon of a music that demands progress and motion, even in stillness. The tools are there, and composers like Michel are taking full advantage of them. For those interested in bearing witness to such developments, Dear Bicycle is a gorgeous documentation of the real-life thrills that can occur when the rules of musical convention cease to apply. Rating: 7.9 (full review *here*)

-Pitchfork

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Academic musicologists turned new-digital trick-turners rarely make for much fun in the parlour, but Princeton-tied postmodernist-type electro-monkey Nathan Michel puts the cad into academic, making music that is most playful and pretty in its cutting and pasting of disparate parts into crafty-yet-cutesy abstract-electro action. His second record for Kid606's sprawling Tigerbeat6 empire is one of the more charming such outings to turn up in this here year, Michel juggling attenuated bits-and-pieces and samples --a musical bowling-ball here, a conceptual chainsaw there, a high-art watermelon in the air-- until the blur of oddball shapes his circus-act is sending into aerial arcs resembles naught more than a perfectly rhythmic blur. Glide might be this disc's best example of this, combining combinative elements that include samples of Thelonious Monk, Spike Jones, Wild Man Fischer and Patsy Cline into a three-minute pop-song cleaved into two distinctive halves; its opening a mentallist Tak-ish computer-sung fragment-babbling that stops, suddenly, to fold out into a second-stanza making an emotional promenade from fractional Monk piano, synthesised faux-horn stabs, and spastic moments of wrangled distressed-digitalia. Nice.(review is *here*)

-Gravity Girl

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It's hard not to immediately compare Nathan Michel's Dear Bicycle to Frank Zappa's Civilization Phase III. All of the elements are there: the hummable but strangely dissonant melodies, the fresh-sounding percussion workouts, and the quirky sense of humor that graced the majority of Zappa's works. But it's not all about Zappa either; there's a trace element of Captain Beefheart, Stravinsky, and modern-day artists like labelmate Kid 606 that, when put together, form the basis of Michel's extremely fresh approach to IDM composition. Much like madman/genius Brian Wilson, Michel juxtaposes instruments with such bright and resilient tones over one another that amid the frenetic chaos of the arrangements it somehow makes sense. It's a perfect fusion of the academic sensibilities and rampant aesthetic Tigerbeat so fiercely holds near and dear to their hearts. Easily one of the most challenging listens in their catalog and essential for fans of both camps. (review is *here*)

-Allmusic Guide

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Fucking with pop music the Tigerbeat6 way, New Jersey-based solo artist Nathan Michel has perfected a way to make music sound idiosyncratic, fascinating and exasperating all at the same time. His second album, Dear Bicycle, cuts and pastes, mixes in loops and swerves its way around the confining genre of pop music. Using an unorthodox selection of instruments, ranging from computerized harpsichord, a standard Casio SK1, a penny whistle, faint traces of guitars, a kazoo, Chinese medicine balls (?) and of course, laptop computers, Michel is a master of his musical domain. Compellingly, he also uses samples of Thelonious Monk, Patsy Cline and Spike Jones (all in one song, too -- "Glide"), as well as stranger sounds like an actual symphony and connection noises from the Internet. Dear Bicycle is a whimsical example of pop music compatible with the likes of Momus, Fennesz, The Magnetic Fields and Manitoba. If any of those rock your boat, this will definitely sink it with delight. (review is *here*)

-In Music We Trust

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Classical schooled American composer Nathan Michel works in the same vein, although his music is more melodic. Fairytale melodies for children, again, but now combined with those from game-computers. With these two sounds Michel not only gives us drum'n bass but also pure pop and interludes full of even fusion-like electric guitar, peeling away it‚s surreal notes over a meandering electronic background. This album comes with the highest possible recommendations.

-Vital Weekly

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REVIEWS of TREBLY

Another limited edition in the ever evolving, Mr. Mutt Live CDR Series (200 count) is Trebly by Nathan Michel and it is a bit of a departure from the earlier more cosmic-heady offerings from this Italian label. Something of a cut-up fest of spring-like animated samples with a fever for all that is Kraftwerkian redux. Some rough end percussion sounds flatly practice-like, but the dynamic electronic sounds of 2001 (the future, not the year) make for a dreamy trip into the retrosphere. This is an updated, sort of futuretron version of Speak & Spell - like being at the Peppermint Lounge in 2025. This has something in common with works by Taylor Deupree, and even perhaps works on Sonig, but has its own personal vibe that dips rather casually into both old school sampling and some early UK techno. All tracks were opportunely designed exclusively upon a computer, and it shows as Michel forms an endearing universe where inclusive warm bubbly harmonies are harnessed by a dazzling digital world. (review is *here*)

-Igloo Magazine

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REVIEWS of abc def

The majority of ABC DEF is not a big slumber party, but rather the story of one kid alone in his room, under the covers with a flashlight, plagued by a head cold and too much cough syrup. Some fascinating ideas spill out from Nathan Michel's fevered dreams, fully formed and brief, but introverted fantasies like this are going to take four years of art school and some heavy drinking to make sense of. (full review *here*)

-Pitchfork Media

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Lo-fi-skittish-video game-pop melodies and an album that quickly grows with each listen. Nathan Michel creates tracks that have the innocence of a tech crazed Japanese girl and the sneaky attitude of Donkey Kong and once you run it through a set of headphones, it’s a new experience as each sound offers a new perspective. (full review *here*)

-Hybrid Magazine

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Abc Def was one of momus' pick hits for 2002! There is an interesting essay *here* about all of the records on his list including an interview with nathan michel.

-Momus

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ABC DEF whips through all manner of moods, but it's less interested in pop structures, withholding immediate gratification in favor of a denser, deflected kind of pleasure....Michel traipses through melted analog melodies, scraps of found sound, and skittering, computer-born percussion. Too frazzled to sound naïve, Michel's Casio antics offer an addled take on lo-fi electronix. (full review *here*)

-Needle Drops

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While there are little moments of melody to hang your ear on, mainly it's a nonstop ride through an environment in which squeaks and squirts rule in haphazard ways. It's fun not knowing what will come next, but all the random bits and hodgepodges make it frustrating as heck sometimes too. (full review *here*)

-Almostcool

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Video game bleeps, fuzz, and time-stretched noise, along with other sound experiments are all mashed up for this release. at times, it sounds very v/vm-ish, with the kitschy samples just completely destroyed. but, at other times, the album possesses a bizarre, gentle side, with melodies that have been held underwater, and the sound of mice being stepped on.the main reason i like the album is due to the (almost) constant diversity. michel knows when to flip it, and move on to some other concept of sound exploration. (full review *here*)

-Absorb

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