The synth waves of Mike Deni’s music project Geographer reverberated across the walls of Valley Bar this Saturday.
Geographer performed its latest album “Down and Out in the Garden of Earthly Delights” on the final leg of its tour.
“It’s been great just to be playing shows again. After so many years of just sitting at home. It’s so fun to connect with fans and also just the music,” Deni said.
This has been Geographer’s latest tour since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Andrew Ball, an attendee of the concert, said Geographer’s music has been good for a while.
“The last couple albums have been good cover to cover,” Ball said. Geographer released its latest album in December 2020. This was Geographer’s first solo album with only Deni from the original group contributing.
The crowd assembled early with fans filling up the venue as the doors opened.
Susan Weisz Howard, another attendee of the concert said she did not notice much of a difference between this first solo project and previous albums that had all of the original members.
“We listened to it. We liked it. Great album,” Howard said. “I didn’t really notice the difference.”
The group split apart after group members Nathan Blaz and Brian Ostreicher had complications and could no longer continue touring.
“My original drummer got really sick and dropped out of the band. I have never looked back from the very first moments I could think. It’s just music to me,” Deni said. “The cellist, same deal but without the illness he just like was ‘this was kinda killing me’ because touring is kind of hard.”
The transition to going solo was not too foreign to Deni as he was the main composer.
“I’ve always written the songs, and then I just took it to these guys to record them. In that process, they would kick some ideas to me back and forth and it was really valuable to me. That 20% to 10% of outside input that those two guys gave; that kind of made the magic of those early years,” Deni said.
The feeling that Biaz and Ostreicher gave him was very important according to Deni as he searched for composers and artists that would give him the same feeling as the original band.
After the show, applause lasted for several minutes after Geographer performed its last song. Megan Lowy said the concert was incredible.
“It was incredible they put on the best show. This was my first concert back post-pandemic and my second time seeing them live,” Lowy said.
After this album and tour, Deni looked toward the future to what Geographer would be in the coming years.
“I have a couple of festivals on the horizon which I am looking forward to. I do like to tread ground on every new record, I like to do something new,” Deni said. “I don’t want to force it, but I do want to progress.”
Contact the reporter at dherre15@asu.edu.
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