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THE DEATH OF THE ALBUM THE FALL OF SAIGON

 By MIKE ARMSTRONG                         

 Chapter 1

 The day was sunny.

-The Fall of Saigon

Introduction: Obsession and Music

When I say, “I’ll Tell You a Story About You,” I mean I’ll tell you one about me.

Obsession is a son of a bitch. It compounds you. It makes you. It wants to eat at you. It wants you to die. But the pleasure is so real! So intense! So rewarding that there can be little to no substitute for it. There can be no comparison, no heaven, no plentiful life-after-death scenario, no holy promise, no Sadeh, Naw-Rúz, no shadow nor Paryushana, no Christian, no Matsuri, no Buddha, no swirling, no light—no temple sage, no feast, no wine—there is just Obsession. It is both death and joy. It destroys families, it pulls tongues, it eats its cake. It is openness in all its glory, it is valleys, it is squander, it is peaks, and it is bliss. — It’s a son of a bitch.
I would know—I have my obsession—with music. It’s so consuming it’s affecting my relationship with my children. My wife looks down every time I bring up the subject. But despite this, I continue. I move forward. As I write this now, in the darkness of my room, my small son is next to me on the bed, the cold light of the computer screen drawing the color out of his sleeping face. His last words before he fell asleep: “Dad, you’re always sitting on the computer with your music. I miss you.” Obsession is a dirty son of a bitch.

Chapter 2

I was in Elsewhere. 

I left your brother there. 

He was sawing logs stiff like cacti.
-The Fall of Saigon

The Fall of Saigon: A Band Unlike Any Other

 “Practice Makes You Perfect They Say.”
“Oh, I Just Thought You Were a Genius.”

The Fall of Saigon, comprising only one person, has made over 856 songs across roughly 100 albums within the last three years. And it’s not a pissing contest. Despite the speed of their release, his albums have been eerily coherent, meticulously positioned, and spaced in a way that mirrors an artist who has spent years perfecting just one.

Everything has its place. The sheer volume of his work makes it hard to get an overall picture, but even from his early albums, there are hints of the more technically sophisticated production that emerges later. The musical thread, the lyrics, the artwork—it’s all there from the beginning. The melodies, the mix-matching of electric and acoustic guitar, the interludes, the leitmotifs, the repetition of songs over multiple albums with subtle variations—all of it seems deliberately chosen to advance the greater whole of the story.
And it is through this obsession for storytelling and writing, combined with an intense, almost manic pace of production, that a densely packed description of life unfolds over many albums. Suddenly, music feels literary.

At night sometimes I want to let go of everything.

But in the morning, I thresh the grain again.

Articulate, Recompose
Choose your words. Make them ring.
Tell yourself no. Restart.
And finally, sort it out.

-The Fall of Saigon

Music as Literature: Listening as Reading

 I read books too you know. When I listen back through The Fall Of Saigon's newest album and trace it back to his earlier works, I am reminded less of other musicians and more of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle, Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past series, or Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

I read books too, and this is the first time I’ve ever listened to music and afterward felt the same way I do when I finish a novel.
I don’t know what this means. But I imagine the shift from recording studios to home studios, into the intimacy of personal space, lends itself to this concept of a recorded diary of sorts. Not explicitly true to life, but close enough to capture the fleeting moments of personality, the moods, the unintentional sounds—the everyday machinations of home that find themselves in the recording.
This makes a project like The Fall of Saigon possible. This allows the creative process of making and recording music to inch closer to the act of pure writing. The burden of production is removed. The weight of industry constraints—gone.

 The Power of Capturing a Moment

When I say, “I’ll Tell You a Story About You,” I mean I’ll tell you one about me ( Demo-version-2) I have a track where there’s a creak in the floor the moment my wife comes into the room late at night to tell me I’m playing too loud (it happens often). And every time I listen to that moment in the song, I reflexively turn to look if she’s at the door—no matter where I am.

Imagine the power of that. Imagine the beauty of that moment archived for your future self. Is that not already Swann’s Way? The ability to have immediate access to your emotions, frozen in time?
An argument my wife is having with the children recorded from a distant room—Is that not My Struggle? Technology has democratized music-making. You can now record a studio-quality album from home as easily as you can put pen to paper, changing the way we’re able to tell stories through music.

Chapter 4

The road to elsewhere must be traveled
Be cautious there unless you're double
Though you can hide amongst the maples
It will be better to ride a marble

-The Fall of Saigon

The Shift from Performance to Recording

Will you be performing tonight?
Sorry, no. I've been sober for years.

For many musicians today, making music is an act of recording, not necessarily playing. It’s about the tracks, the mix, and the layering of instruments to craft a complete sound.
I run into this issue often when talking to musicians about RoomRock: “Is it a problem I don’t play live?”
These aren’t musicians you’ll find busking on a street corner. And I’m continuously amazed by how many ‘bands’ are just one person—The SpukSchreibMaschine comes to mind. But to think of them in the singular seems ridiculous. He’s not in a band—he is the band.
With this shift into private spaces and the technical ability to make endless home recordings, we now have artists like The Fall of Saigon—the right band, at the right moment in time, with an obsession and drive that takes this new way of storytelling and elevates it to something sublime.
Something truly special.
And, in my small understanding of the world, something not only important but critical to music in the new century.

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Conclusion: The Album as a Novel

The road to elsewhere must be traveled
Be cautious there unless you're double
Though you can hide amongst the maples
It will be better to ride a marble

The Fall of Saigon

The Album is dead. 

The album is novel. 

The Fall of Saigon .

The greatest band of  the new century.