{"id":25912,"date":"2021-01-30T18:10:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-30T23:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=25912"},"modified":"2021-01-30T18:10:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T23:10:06","slug":"interview-mixtape-for-the-milky-way-makes-the-unknown-intimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2021\/01\/30\/interview-mixtape-for-the-milky-way-makes-the-unknown-intimate\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW: Mixtape for the Milky Way makes the unknown intimate"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jackson Tarricone<\/em><\/p>\n

Until now, Minnesota singer-songwriter (and sometimes baker) Jeremy Messersmith<\/a> has released music entirely under his own name. For his latest project, Mixtape for the Milky Way<\/a>, however, Messersmith wanted to separate his music from his identity. When he played these songs live in the past, Messersmith found it \u201cemotionally draining.\u201d This is where the new name comes in: \u201cI felt like I needed a little bit of a screen to hide behind,\u201d he said. Along with that, there is quite a dramatic thematic contrast from recent releases: \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to go tonally from a song like \u2018everybody gets a kitten\u2019 to a song about child abuse,\u201d Messersmith remarked.<\/p>\n

The name itself also represents a stark contrast. A mixtape is so small and human, while the Milky Way is so large and cosmic. According to Messersmith, the name is a reference to the golden records on the voyager probe, which he called \u201cone of the most beautiful things that humans have done.\u201d The concept fascinated him: \u201cwe literally made a mixtape that will long outlive all of us just drifting through space,\u201d a reality which Messersmith described as \u201cimpossibly beautiful.\u201d This particular name had been floating around in his head for a while, as are many other names for future albums and potential side projects.<\/p>\n

The name also comes from Messersmith\u2019s longtime admiration of space, which he calls \u201cautomatically cool.\u201d Singing about and pondering space makes Messersmith ask himself questions about life: \u201cLife, how crazy is that? \u201cHow beautifully insignificant is everything that I care deeply about?\u201d To Messersmith, this is a source of dark humor, which he strives to capture in his songs.<\/p>\n

Another aspect that sets Mixtape for the Milky Way apart is that it is a mixtape as opposed to a full length album. Messersmith wanted to experiment with the release process: \u201cI\u2019ve been putting out albums for a few years now and it always feels like pushing a baby bird out of a nest and just like well I hope it does ok, who knows,\u201d he said. A mixtape also suits the material itself, according to Messersmith: \u201cI felt like I had to deliver them a little more evenly.\u201d To achieve this, Mixtape for the Milky Way releases a new song and video one at a time every two weeks.<\/p>\n

Initially, these songs proved difficult to organize for Messersmith. He had made a version of this material as an album with his longtime collaborators Andy Thompson and Dan Lawonn along with the rest of his band, but \u201cit just wasn\u2019t quite working\u201d with the music. For whatever reason, these songs didn\u2019t fit in the usual Jeremy Messersmith chamber pop production style.<\/p>\n

So, Messersmith took the ideas from these sessions to producer John Mark Nelson, which resulted in a different process and a distinct sound. Commenting on the production, Messersmith noted that it is \u201ca lot smaller, I spent a lot more time working on vocals than I normally would.\u201d With each song, Messersmith brought the idea in, played guitar and sung it, then he and Nelson figured out what to do with the song: \u201cwe really explored a lot to get a sound and a vibe, like kind of dark synths and high strings and a few kind of more out there experimental textures,\u201d he said. These sounds appear on a lot of the songs, specifically the mellow synth pop-esque \u201cSong for the Dead.\u201d At the end, they usually ended up not needing the original guitar in the song at all.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Messersmith sang as close to the mic and as quietly as possible for this project to make it a more \u201cheadphones sounding record.\u201d The purpose of this was to keep the songs grounded: \u201cWe can have a big sonic universe outside of that but my voice has to be the anchor,\u201d Messersmith noted.<\/p>\n

Another artist who approaches vocals and production in a similar manner, Phoebe Bridgers, was a big inspiration for this project. Jeremy was listening to both her and Olafur Arnalds a lot while making the music for Mixtape for The Milky Way. Arnalds especially influenced the production style on this project, according to Messersmith: \u201cWe actually used a lot of his Nordic textures on the album. We were kind of going for a Minnesota north shore sort of feel, which is a bit Scandinavian-esque.\u201d Longtime friend and collaborator Dan Wilson of Semisonic\u2014who has also made a highly esteemed carer as a songwriter for artists such as Adele and Taylor Swift\u2014remains Messersmith\u2019s \u201cnumber one inspiration\u201d after he discovered Messersmith in a coffee shop and produced Messersmith\u2019s sophomore album, The Silver City.<\/em> Wilson also gave notes on this project.<\/p>\n

What makes this project distinct from Messersmith\u2019s solo work is that he is writing directly from his personal life, sticking to \u201cnon-fiction\u201d as opposed to the colorful characters and stories of his other material. Messersmith is trying to be as objective as possible: \u201cI\u2019m trying not to be super biased, I\u2019m just stating stuff that happened, at least the best I can say.\u201d At the same time, Messersmith is not fixating on the technical aspects of lyricism as meticulously as he does in his solo work, despite the craft being \u201cburned\u201d into his brain. Instead, Mixtape for the Milky Way is more \u201cfree flowy stream of consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether for this project or for his other work, Messersmith wavers between two methods of lyricism. First, there is the \u201chaiku mindset,\u201d writing vague, abstract lyrics so people can attach their own meaning. Messersmith singled out Bon Iver as a prime example of this: the meaning of his lyrics are \u201cwhatever you feel whatever you\u2019re filling that vessel with at the moment.\u201d On the opposite end of the spectrum, lyrics could be super specific like \u201ca tiny little grain of sand\u201d yet still contain \u201cthe whole universe.\u201d Either way, Messersmith believes listeners should reach their own conclusions. When his manager asked him to explain the meaning behind the songs, Messersmith said \u201cthe song is what it\u2019s about!\u201d The lyrics on Mixtape for the Milky Way contain a mixture of both.<\/p>\n

Even less tied to meaning are the ambient music videos that go along with the songs. Messersmith\u2019s music videos in the past, such as \u201cOrgan Donor\u201d or \u201cSweep Me Off My Feet,\u201d which Messersmith directed himself, follow the narrative of the songs. For this project, aside from the video for \u201cVideo Games,\u201d each video is just a natural landscape. Messersmith explained that the ambient videos are a \u201cvisual diary\u201d of where he worked on the songs. He did his writing at his friends\u2019 cabins on the north shore of Minnesota. He would spend his mornings writing in the cabin and then hiking in the afternoons. Eventually, he started bringing a phone and a tripod to film these locations, which he enjoyed very much: \u201cIt was a really fun, kind of meditative thing for me,\u201d Messersmith said. Jeremy also explained why he decided against traditional music videos for these songs: \u201cBecause I was writing stuff that was really specific\u2014 I mean literally singing people out of my life\u2014I didn\u2019t want it to be super branded or attached to a music video. I wanted people to be able to project their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messersmith sees Mixtape for The Milky Way not only as separate from the rest of his catalog, but also separate from himself, calling the project \u201ca stripping away of me.\u201d Despite that, he says these songs are for himself as he processes his childhood and adolescence: \u201cI could pay a therapist to help with that, and I do, but I\u2019m uniquely equipped to write about that and get rid of ghosts from my own life. Maybe that helps other people along the path too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with this project, Messersmith also has more than 40 songs written for his solo work. He plans to meet up with the band sometime soon to discuss possible directions for the new material. Until then, we can expect more beautifully sparse music and visuals from Mixtape For The Milky Way, a project that is both incredibly personal and communal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jackson Tarricone Until now, Minnesota singer-songwriter (and sometimes baker) Jeremy Messersmith has released music entirely under his own name. For his latest project, Mixtape for the Milky Way, however, Messersmith wanted to separate his music from his identity. When he played these songs live in the past, Messersmith found it \u201cemotionally draining.\u201d This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17168,"featured_media":25913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[29,1726,1759,1760],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25912"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25916,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25912\/revisions\/25916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}