For the last few years I've been working on and off with ideas for a concept album, you know the kind of pompous albums that artists make when they have had success and get high on themselves. Thankfully, I've never seen any success to speak of for my music, so I can make the pompous concept album without any personal- or professional risk.
So I'm releasing the Modern Man concept album in 2021 (I've stolen the title from the Arcade Fire song from the Suburbs album). All the songs are there - written over the last 10 years. All the rest is missing though - instrumentation and arrangement, lyrical- and musical consistency and continuity (it's concept album after all!).
So what is the concept about?
James Down is living in 2123. Mortality is a thing of the past. As a consequence depression has skyrocketed. Having kids is illegal except for a few qualified “breeders” and the “feeling” industry has people paying large parts of their income for any stimuli that gives them pleasure, pain - anything that makes them feel something. James is 150 years old, and fit like a 25 year old. His mental condition is abyssal - name a condition, he probably has it. He’d had 150 years to think about all the things that can go wrong, and all the mistakes he’s done. It’s dystopia. But there is hope. In the human condition.
I will blog about the process monthly through 2021, and the album will be released in december. So it's fitting that we start at the beginning - here's the demo of Oslo 2049 which will kick off the album.