Geographer contemplates if "Love is Wasted in the Dark" [Premiere]

Geographer is the moniker for Los Angeles-based Mike Deni's synthpop/indie rock band. In April of 2018, Deni gave up his apartment in San Francisco, and spent the next six months without a home, hopping between tours and friends' couches, and spending a significant amount of time in his hometown, eventually moving to Los Angeles in September of 2018. During that time of shiftlessness, in limbo between his old and new life, Deni wrote the songs that would become his new EP, due out March 22. Today, EARMILK is excited to share with fans the first single off that new album titled, "Love is Wasted in the Dark". Check it out below.

"This is a song about feeling like you're unworthy of someone's love. The song is sort of a modern "It Ain't Me Babe" with the dominating emotion being melancholy instead of egotism. I like the title very much because the first line is "your love is wasted in my heart," which makes darkness and his heart the same thing. There are many times in my life when I've felt that my heart is no place for another person's love, that it just wasn't built for the complicated tug of war of a relationship. We all keep our sadness like a secret from our lovers until we perceive they're in too deep to leave. But we are ashamed of something that we all go through. It's like keeping the force of a tidal wave at bay every time I say "hi" to someone. And I guess sometimes that feels like an imperfect vessel for another person's love." Mike Deni, Geographer

Geographer delivers deeply textured music that pulls influences from various elements of indie-rock, synth-wave, pop, folk, and ambient. Deni specializes in crafting meaningful music derived from a very real place. For him, it's clear that music provides both a creative outlet and a tool for deep self-reflection. "Love is Wasted in the Dark" serves as an internalized inquisition on one's emotions and how they are expressed outwardly. Deni's signature intimate vocal delivery mirrors the sometimes frustrated dialogue in one's heart, (not the head), that contemplates why no one is ever let in. A playful piano-driven melody intertwines with the lyrics to create this almost poetic dance between the vocals and the instrumentals that eventually erupt this vibrant climax.

After spending six months without a home, spending a month in his home town in NJ, a few weeks in Italy, where both sides of his family are from, Geographer relocated to Los Angeles. "Summer of My Discontentment" and the New Jersey EP are the first pieces of music written during that time to be released by Deni and explores the notions of origin, nostalgia, and the metamorphosis of the dreams of the young. The forthcoming EP reflects this time of his youth in New Jersey and explores the themes of the hopes and aspirations of the young and how they become refracted as we move towards them.

"Love is Wasted in the Dark" is a beautifully evocative new single and an early indicator that something really special and meaningful is hiding behind this upcoming EP.