ARTIST SPOTLIGHT – MICHAEL ALDAG
“You’ve got to get out of your own way where I come from,” declares artist and producer Michael Aldag. “That’s why I love nothing more than a one word title: you can pick the song up like a sweet and move it around in your mouth.”
Pop music has traditionally been a space for self-assured poseurs. But its posers Pop provocateurs are supposed to prod listeners with. Who wants answers? You can’t be sure of those who are sure of themselves. But you can rely on Alt-Pop renaissance man Aldag, who writes and records all his own material, to provide you with enough questions for you to question yourself.
“How do I still hate myself when I’m a narcissist?” asks former single ‘Apathy’, all topline melody and abstract breakbeats. If that’s not a great line, then it’ll certainly do until one gets here – and this Merseyside singer/songwriter has many more thought-provoking lyrics where they came from.
You might have heard of Michael if you’re on Tik-Tok, but more of us would have heard from him if music still swam the mainstream. Art exists everywhere, but music only thrives in social media spaces. That suits Aldag, who found his audience online, post-pandemic. “I joined TikTok when the lockdown hit. I was trying to be funny on my couch to make myself laugh and started getting traction… so I went live on the App and played music to people from my laptop – that’s what got me an audience and a record contract.”
His record label (3 Beat/UMG) recently encouraged the artist to collaborate more, but Aldag remains reticent, if not resistant. He’s right to be wary. The Liverpool FC fan’s music might not be singular – bits of Bleachers here, shades of Sampha and Sleaford Mods there – but he’s an original stylist with something to say and a startling sound to say it with. The synths sound like right now, perpetual motion runs through his melodies and his voice brings the best of the Scouse accent to sing-a-long stories. “I’ve been singing in choirs since I was 14, but got fed-up of Benjamin Britten songs,” he laughs. “So I started to write my own tunes.”
With a UK tour imminent and tracks dropping all the time – check out recent self-help single ‘Sabotage’, the banging ‘Cheating’ and the John Hughes-esque 80s-sounding ‘Girlfriends’ (sample lyric: “She’s got her Only Fans but I’m not gonna judge her for that / Maybe she could be my girlfriend” – Aldag is the boy from the flat above with a spring in his step, a song in his heart and an idea permanently percolating. “Ever since I got my first guitar, I’ve always wanted to play my own songs,” he says. “My ideas now come when I get home from somewhere and go for a run. Lots of my songs arrive at the end of a run to Hoylake or through West Kirby.”
Here is a brave new wordsmith striving to find melodies beyond most grasps, and an artist who draws straight lines through aural abstracts. You know there’s a great full-length album in his future too, and it’s a path one of his runs will take him on soon. “I had a songwriting epiphany recently,” he reveals. “I realised I’ll be playing these songs for years to come, so I really want to be proud of them. That’s why I’m currently driving my record label mad by re-recording stuff. Promo on just one song is so full-on these days – you’ll be talking about your tune every day for six weeks! – so I think I’m going to end up hating my work eventually… but I want to like what I’ve done enough to only start hating it further down the line!” Wise words from a songwriter who stormed Sound City this year and has attracted acclaim from the likes of Clash and Line Of Best Fit. Aldag knows where he’s from, but what about where he’s going? The Sam Fender-fronts-The War On Drugs-esque ‘Bleak’ points to strong slots on next summer’s big UK festivals, if Aldag’s poetic sense of wonder keeps him chasing further sonic delights.
It was the king of the confessional songwriters, the legendary Leonard Cohen, who sang about light getting into the cracks that can appear when an artist really opens the vein. That’s the next challenge for our hero: to stay hard, stay hungry and stay alive, with the desire to create that burns from within.
Written by Alan O’Hare
Photos courtesy of Michael Aldag
