"This Album's About Me, Too!"
Image courtesy of Christopher Normann
“I feel like all of my old albums are about other people,” confessed Christopher Normann, Berklee senior and Boston musician. “I wanted something more complex, and that’s where the title comes from — It’s About Me, Too, you know?” Normann’s new album succeeds at this goal, a masterful dissection of self through a mish-mash of jazz and electronic sound.
Originally from California, Normann comes from a family that isn’t particularly musical. Growing up with no musicians in the house didn’t stop his musical taste from being influenced by his parents, though. Hearing Santana, one of his dad’s favorite artists, convinced Normann to learn electric bass in his grade school band. However, he didn’t stick to just one genre, moving into video game music after an obsession with Geometry Dash. For six years after, he made EDM. These various experiences led to his current sound, following a trend of indie artists drifting away from the confines of one specific genre.
“When I create a song, it's like taking a leap. I typically have a cool lyric or rhythm stuck in my head, and then I expand on it.” Discussing his creative process, Normann revealed how much his influences have shaped him. “Car Seat Headrest was a huge shift for me. They made me realize how writing songs actually makes me an author.” This story-centric approach to lyric writing definitely comes across in It’s About Me, Too, as many tracks have a nursery rhyme quality to them. The children’s book, Pete The Cat appears in many of the promotional materials surrounding the album and has a significant influence on the lyrics and story behind the opening song, “Elderberry.”
“The album starts off with this song that is very much about another person. My girlfriend and I were walking and we found this Pete The Cat book… Later, when we were doing long distance, everything I saw just reminded me of her.” The song opens with the whimsical lyrics, “Well, it's just a cat on a book without a daisy-sounding voice to sing its tune / I’m just a creature on a hook without a level-headed girl to fish me out from the lagoon.”
Normann is unique not only in genre, or lack thereof, but also in his production style — he produces his music entirely on his own. The artist mostly mixes himself as well, although he made sure to make special note of his main collaborator, his Berklee mix professor, Jason Petrin. While Normann heavily values collaboration and has utilized the practice multiple times within this album, he also really appreciates how many up-and-coming artists have complete control over their own production processes: “It's completely unique to this generation.”
He treats the process like production is its own instrument. In the fourth track,“A Place to Call My Own,” Normann solidifies what is at the core of this album: an attempt to carve out a place for yourself in the world. This collection of songs all together form a timeline within the album — Normann moves from songs about other people in his life to slowly trying to uncover who he is apart from them. The production reflects this theme, a dreamy discordance of different vocals and instrumentals that weave between one another. Normann speaks lovingly of his affinity for layering tracks on top of each other, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
“HE TREATS THE PROCESS LIKE PRODUCTION IS ITS OWN INSTRUMENT.”
The fifth song, “I Can’t Dance With You,” also leans into the distorted sound that’s so crucial to the album. The vocals of Normann and his featured artist, Fraud Monet, are syncopated in a way that flows together quite well, while initially seeming dissonant. Fraud Monet is actually not just one artist, but a duo project between Normann and his roommate, Jadon Sweat. “It felt like we were trading souls, producing together,” he says. “It's not often that I [get into that flow] with people. I work best with others who are completely immersed in the music and unafraid to express themselves. [Jadon’s] not afraid to disagree with me… it's like a playful fight.” The two plan to release more under the moniker, Fraud Monet in the near future.
“The Architect” is the final song on the album, and for good reason. The song truly feels like the proper completion of a work, where the singer finally comes to terms with everything he is. “[The song] is about so many things, but I also still kind of don’t know what it's about!” Normann says. “It’s about God, it’s about the process, it’s about everything that’s made me what I am and what we all are, and how we’re all connected to the foundation of things.” This track is a stand-out, the most experimental of the bunch. It was the song with the most outside input, with two of his friends featured on some of the instrumental tracks. Specifically, one of Normann’s best friends and longtime musical partners, Dominic Constantz, played guitar on it and inspired much of the soundscape as well. “When we were younger, Dom used to have this delay pedal and we would crank it back and forth to make all these weird, electronic sounds. So here, it feels a bit like an ode to him.”
Image courtesy of Sam Wachs
The messages slowly building through the rest of the songs all culminate here. Normann’s struggle with his identity amidst his loved ones seems to be reflected with the almost angry sound on “The Architect.” How do you define yourself in all the noise, the music asks. The song builds and builds with track after track layered on, until it spirals out of control with a long, repeated guitar riff from Dom and Normann’s classic electronic backings. “[The breakdown] feels like a characteristic of my music, which is why I wanted to end it here. It all breaks down at the end, to the place it needs to be.”