So you’re walking in the city one night and take a shortcut through a laneway. Ahead of you is a man, his coif immaculate, his clothes fine, his trademark boots clicking in a way that coalesces into a beat. He might be singing to himself, or into his phone – either way, don’t be alarmed. That’s just Mikelangelo.
The soundscapes in which Mikelangelo deploys his weapons-grade baritone are as varied as his projects, which include Balkan-flavoured balladry and high-stepping rock ’n’ roll. His newest work, Melbourne – City of Dreams, is a moody and atmospheric evocation of his adopted hometown that will be launched, appropriately enough, at this year’s Melbourne Festival.
“It’s been quite an intuitive album from the start. I often get around the city on foot; I find it a nice way to think, and music comes into my mind that way. Songs come into my head that I enjoy in the moment, and then I let them go again,” he says.
“A few years ago I started recording them as I walked and, over a course of months, a set of songs came together, ideas or sketches that were influenced by the city. The idea came to me to work on each song with a different Melbourne artist or singer or producer that I loved, to make it a celebration of the things I love about this city.”
Artists such as Sufjan Stevens have taken similar approaches to albums, albeit with a more anthropological approach; Mikelangelo’s take is much more personal. While this lends new layers of precision to the phrase “man on the street”, some of his more literal songs never made it onto the album.
“How can you really represent everything about your city in just one album?” he asks, issuing a subterranean, almost subcutaneous, rumble of a laugh.
“These songs were the ones that resonated with me, and sometimes that’s quite abstract. They aren’t necessarily chronological, more like a series of pictures that make up a greater sense of a city.
“The songs namecheck certain places, but I feel the sky or the buildings are characters as much as anything else – or the weather, or what you’re feeling at that moment. If you have your antennae out, there are things that are affecting you all the time.”
Mikelangelo speaks highly of the people he worked with on Melbourne – City of Dreams, including frequent collaborator Clare St Clare and electronics man Miles Brown.
The mononymous Mikelangelo was born in Canberra, moving to Melbourne in 1996. That was when he set up a venue with his family in North Fitzroy called The Truffula Tree. He ran that for four years, booking bands and exhibitions, but found it cut into his creative work.
“I grew up in a very nurturing home in terms of the creative arts. I had music lessons when I was young but didn’t much bond with them. I loved watching Countdown, but playing second clarinet in the school band – with 80 bars’ rest in between parts of the Rocky theme – wasn’t as fun!”
He used to spend most of his time drawing, but singing in his brother’s rock ’n’ roll band at the age of 15 sparked an addiction to showmanship.
This is evident even when he isn’t singing; Mikelangelo speaks in enormous run-on sentences, at one point pausing politely to explain there are four ideas competing for attention and he can’t decide which to articulate first.
It’s a neat parallel for his career; he has various bands, including The Tin Star (think twanging tremolo guitars, courtesy of his father’s ’60s instrumental records) and the Black Sea Gentlemen, which shares some DNA with the Croatian folk songs he once devoured. But when it comes to his oeuvre, Mikelangelo insists it’s not necessary to be a completist.
“There’s a lot of debate about authenticity (in music), which I think is fine, but everything is authentic to that person,” he says.
“I think as artists what we’re doing is creating something; it’s about communication, ideas and making people feel things.”
As for Melbourne, Mikelangelo says it’s in his blood and keeps drawing him back, no matter where he goes on his travels or on tour.
“There’s a particular energy about it that I love. It’s a relatively big city, but it doesn’t feel like a big city – you have the energy and the opportunities, and also the sense of being able to cross the road and say hello to people on street corners,” he says.
“It’s a really lovely thing because it breaks down the alienation that I think can happen in a city. Cities are amazing places, but they can be daunting and overwhelming, and that human scale is one of the things I love most about Melbourne.”
WATCH
» Melbourne – City of Dreams. October 14-16, Tuesday 6pm, Wednesday-Thursday 8pm, Melbourne Festival Foxtel Festival Hub. Tickets $35
» The Melbourne Festival runs October 10-26, www.melbournefestival.com.au
