Mk.gee’s debut album is a genre-bending, ethereal landscape curated of fuzzy base lines, low-fi pop rock and instrumental abstraction of a new age.
A recent appearance on SNL brought this musician to the forefront of my mind and after watching his performances there (drawn in by the stark, refreshing simplicity of the visual set up of the show) fell down a rabbit hole of his latest album and all of his live sessions. American guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, Michael Gordon, aka, Mk.gee, from New Jersey, released his debut album February of 2024.
Recalling nostalgic, 70s guitar, 80s synth rock influences, this rock genius gives us a sound roughly similar to Dominic Fyke vocals, and D’Angelo and The Police style guitar influence. With funky bass riffs and murky, elusive, and exploratory sounds, this ambient album captures and marries the essences of rock, R & B, and pop. Still wholly unique, Mk.gee has given us such a uniquely curated sound that he’s spent the last 6 years perfecting.
Since discovering this album, I really cannot express my adoration and obsession with the sound and each individual song he’s made here. Without a doubt my favorite album of the year, and most repeated when it comes to the live versions he’s released on YouTube.
Opening with a dripping, crumbling, distorted, low-fi electronic sound in ‘New Low’, Gordon explores all sorts of musical territory throughout the album, while still maintaining a sense of cohesiveness. Like simultaneously navigating and creating a landscape that climbs and dips, rises and settles back down again. A dream space that seamlessly slips from song to song, with dips and valleys, the entire album creates a singular alien landscape that seems to be both from the future and of the past, with dense forests, open spaces, and winding rivers.
“Are You Looking Up” is my first favorite song, likely due to the live performance where he performs the song in the opening of a train with a blurry backdrop of trees and wind in his hair, capturing a liberating, open sensation the music seems to insinuate. The song begins with a catchy synth-pop, 80’s reminiscent melody, intermingled with strange sounds of crashing and glass, and something like a machine whirring, with scattered clapping. Matched with catchy, head-bobbing guitar riffs, his voice and lyrics come out on top without being overlapped, and in the end, he has curated an odd array of sounds that combine like an abstract painting into something entirely unique and somehow still cohesive.
“Rylee and I” is another favorite on the album which begins with a scratchy, hopping, fuzzy bassline superimposed with a sentimental whispering melody sung alongside it. The guitar holds us by a wire in a steady place while dreamy synth echoes around it and Gordon’s vocals billow about it all. One comment on his live video which I loved and think captures the album perfectly, described his music as “formless puffs of smoke – when you try to cling to something they disappear.”
Flowing effortlessly into the next one, “Candy” takes us into a territory that feels more open, nostalgic, and tender. ‘And if she’s looking hard she will find it,’ Candy being the personification of shame, and imposter syndrome, always lurking under the surface, and ready to find error and pick and peel it all apart. ‘Candy likes to fantasize’, his introspective lyrics like a dialogue between two entities inside of him, eventually coming to a conclusion, ‘Well, Candy you’re just wasting time,’ a train of thought recycling over a catchy riff, the playfulness of the melody wins over the lyrics in the end.
The dreamy-synth themes of this album materialize in portions of the lyrics, including “I want”, a song about idolizing your partner and questioning the goodness and deserving nature of yourself. ‘So tell me what you’re dreaming about… ’cause I know that there’s things you can’t quite tell me all of the time.’ This song occupies a more claustrophobic space with the repetitive nature of the beat and lyrics, coming full circle, rising up for air, and going under again to lap itself. If most of the album is ethereal, this one is more Earthy, and ground-based, rising up to the stars with the nostalgic synth melody at the bridge, and settling back down to Earth again in a cloud of dust before its conclusion.
“Alesis” is the next song on the album, which is the song that introduced me and roped me into the whole thing. The most catching of all the melodies, the real beating heart of the record in its expressiveness, he constructs a mold of a song that he dances in and around during his lives with the most passionate of ease. If the entire album is a curated landscape, this song is its twinkling stars. The sounds in this one are more desperate and scratchy, with raw vocals that plead and shout, but always echo in perfect coherence with the guitar as he plays it as if they are one entity.
“Dream Police” exemplifies a sort of tenderness and longing similar to “Candy”, also best performed in the live version on his channel. Oscillating in perfect balance between raspy and composed, delicate and bold, striking here and there like lightning, he uses his guitar to convey emotions in sync with his lyrics. Gordon proves himself to be a true master of melody in these songs, sacrificing neither lyrics nor exploration nor creativity.
Altogether this album is syndicated of melodies perfectly composed and arranged with an assortment of obfuscated sounds unique to this genre in this time with sounds reminiscent of dreamy 80’s synth pop and grating, crunching metal, saxophone, and nylon guitar. Doing what music is really at its core supposed to do; creating unique sounds that put to melody whole emotions and experiences, he takes us through his windy internal world, that is also sprouting and sparkling and beautiful, we come out better for it in the end, and need to listen again and again in order to savor its spirit.
SydneyLaura.com 