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Crossing Over

An American math rock vet finds a home on a Czech label.

Crossing Over
By Micah Jayne
Mon 2nd Dec, 2002 [updated Thu 6th Oct, 2005]		 Add to favorites email print this article Share on FaceBoook

Michael Nace is the only non-Czech artist on the Czech-based Minority Records. His new album, The Voyage Out, represents a significant departure from the label’s excellent but mainly post-hardcore offerings. The 23-year-old Nace, formerly of Philadelphia’s respected math rock trio Drill for Absentee, has engineered a luxuriant, mature and introspective trip, more reminiscent of Elliot Smith or The Ocean Blue than his own early recordings. It’s hard to imagine what sort of effect his tawdry little emotions had on the crowds gathered to hear Michael at New York’s Mercury Lounge during the College Music Journal festival (CMJ).

The Pill spoke with Nace last week.



Pill: How did you hook up with Minority Records?

Nace: Dan Dudarec was a big fan of Drill For Absentee, and really wanted to work with us in some capacity. Unfortunately, DFA was winding down by the time he had expressed interest in us, so the project was abandoned. In the summer of 2001, I sent him a demo of solo music and he expressed an interest in recording and releasing the music. It was really something I had never counted on. A few months later, Geoff Turner and I began recording it at Phase Studios in Maryland.

Pill: How was the experience as compared to U.S. labels?

Nace: Working with Minority has been nothing short of amazing. There are very few record labels out there that will stick their neck out for a musician the way they did. At the start of this project, I was virtually an unknown artist with no band to play with. I hadn’t even played any gigs. For Dan to invest his label’s resources in me was a real honor, and the work that he has done for the album has been amazing.

Pill: Have you been to Prague before? Did you have any contact with Czech musicians before becoming involved with Minority?

Nace: Though I haven’t been to Prague as of yet, I’ve known Dan for quite some years now. As a result of being friends with him and signing to his label, I’ve had the opportunity to experience a broad cross-section of independent music in the Czech scene. I find it remarkable how the music community there seems to be much like it was here in the U.S. eight to 10 years ago. Bands like Waawe, Gnu and C all come to mind as a new generation of musicians who are bringing the experience of post-communist society and the artistic tradition of Czech culture to their love of innovative American music.

Pill: Describe the experience of playing CMJ.

Nace: CMJ is really a bit overrated, as are most music conferences and showcases, in that they are only as good as what you make them. At a normal gig in the U.S., the focus is on entertaining an audience. It involves simply promoting the show, mobilizing your fan base and putting on a memorable performance. CMJ, however, is supposed to be a showcase that allows a band to invite the music industry to come see them. I suppose that for people who live far from New York City, it has value. But since I live only two hours from New York, CMJ really is always just another gig for me.

Pill: The Voyage Out has strong folk elements, even hints of Eastern influence. Tell me about these in the context of your songwriting.

Nace: I really don’t consider myself a folk artist, though I do recognize that The Voyage Out can come across as a folk album. I think this is due in part to the arrangements that Geoff [Turner] and I developed for the majority of the songs. Rather than just layering different instruments and parts on top of the acoustic guitar and vocals, we wanted the different instruments to be entering and leaving the songs in an almost narrative fashion. As a result, many songs are not driven by a bass and drum rhythm section, but by the acoustic guitar, a true folk motif.

Eastern motifs do come into play in a Qawwali sort of way with respect to the idiosyncratic rhythms of some of the guitar parts. There’s definitely a spiritual aim to The Voyage Out, but not so much in the Qawwali sense. I think I bring more of an Irish Catholic identity to many of the songs. A kind of Joycean obsessiveness and consciousness that undercuts the sublimity of the album as a whole.

Pill: Your music is happy, upbeat, even. Do you feel out of place playing songs like this in the U.S. these days?

I hesitate to mention it, but all I read in reviews these days is “post 9/11” – was that energy hanging over CMJ?

Nace: Most of the songs were written before September 11, with the exception of “Lucky, Solitary Life,” which speaks directly about that experience in a personal, confessional context. My approach to writing songs has remained the same, even after that day. I try not to make music just for myself. If I did, I guess I wouldn’t bother releasing it and performing live. Rather, I make music for other people, and more importantly, I want to make music that makes people feel good.

I find that in the U.S., musicians seem to say and do the exact opposite. They say they make music only for themselves, and the music they make often inspires negative, selfish and self-destructive emotions. You see it most directly with artists like Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson and some other big-name pop acts. It certainly is their right to make whatever music they’d like, but it has always seemed to be a waste of their talent to me.

There’s definitely a “post-9/11” condition among musicians and non-musicians alike, though it really hasn’t changed my overall approach to making music. Many big musicians have made spectacles of themselves in the wake of September 11. Great musicians like Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney really used the disaster in their recent endeavors. It has quickly become a cliche, and has in many ways already lost its effectiveness.

Pill: What happened with Drill for Absentee?

Nace: Nothing too terrible drove DFA to break up. We always got along quite well and had an incredibly healthy and functional songwriting dynamic. But after playing together for five years, we started to want different things. Kevin was accepted into the very prestigious composers program at University of Pennsylvania and has become a classical composer. Bryan moved to New York and began playing in a very successful rock band there called The Alps. I wanted to switch from math rock to a more sublime solo outing.

Pill: It was nice to see so many familiar names on The Voyage Out [Adam Wade from Shudder to Think, Geoff Turner from Dischord]. Do you plan to continue recording with the same group?

Nace: For the next album, I’d like to involve many of the same people as on The Voyage Out. It’ll depend on the kind of budget I have to work with. Geoff will definitely be involved again, and since I’m hoping to record in Prague, I’d like to collaborate with some Czech musicians as well.

Pill: Any plans to come to Prague?

Nace: I want to arrange another record deal and get to Prague as soon as possible to record. I’d like to play over there as well, but unfortunately the money doesn’t exist to make that happen at the moment. I’m hopeful that I’ll be in Prague either playing or recording within the next year.



Michael Nace’s The Voyage Out is available through the Minority Records website or through Day After Records

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