MICHAEL SEYER

Michael Seyer’s, A Good Fool, is the most intimate music he’s made. Opening the record with a distorted and breathy vocal counting “1, 2, 3, 4” before going into the title track, it sets up an album full of warm and hushed tones that makes you feel as though you’re sitting right next to him in his home recording studio. As many other artist’s stories go, A Good Fool was written and recorded throughout 2020 although recording didn’t start until the end of that year. As Seyer states, “I had some material written but I hadn’t committed to anything until May when I moved. My gear was all over the place, in a new recording space. And making a new record for me is always a process of relearning, but it’s fun and so a lot of these songs kind of just started off simple, usually with an acoustic guitar.” The tone that Seyer alludes to comes clear throughout the 11-track, 38-minute project. Over the course of the album, Seyer offers his voice to several, heavy topics from ideas of race, sexuality, and mental health. A standout example comes clear on “Little China Boy” where he alludes to growing up as an immigrant and being misidentified of his Filipino ethnicity from a lack of Asian representation at large. Following this track, “Chemotherapy” paints a younger Michael Seyer reconciling with his father’s illness, refraining “Wish I can go with you to chemo.” Transitions like these back-to-back tracks showcase the emotional weight to which Seyer writes. When asked what he wanted to accomplish with his new album, Seyer says, “Music for me is the most personal thing I can think of doing. Every project, I just wish to articulate my personal experience. At the end of the day, if I can listen to something I made and feel certain that it offers a bit of myself in an authentic way, then I feel like I did something right.” And with a full listen through of A Good Fool, the listener can walk away and feel like they know Michael Seyer just a little better.