The multi-faceted artist Mike Frazier has had one hell of a year. Firstly, his sixth studio album, Secrets of Atlantis, was released on April 26, 2024. The eight-track outing saw Frazier swapping his usual twangy sound for an onslaught of searing psychedelia that flips into moving balladry in the blink of an eye. The daring sonic leap paid off tenfold as Secrets of Atlantis introduces Frazier as a layered musician just starting this exploratory chapter of his career. You don’t get an album like this without inching toward that 10,000-hour mark, and Frazier has been relentlessly pursuing music for almost a decade now.
His first release on Bandcamp dates back to 2015, when Frazier released his Virginia Son project. The expansive 5-track EP had Frazier sounding like a punk-tinged indie outfit before 2017’s Elegy introduced us to the alt-country Frazier would thrive in throughout his discography. Frazier would find solace in the sweet spot between folk and alt-country on 2023’s Another Night, Another Sunrise. Glide had the pleasure of premiering the sweetly twangy cut “Burning Something Sweet,” the progress the artist has made since the last is a testament to his restless creativity. With his country prowess solidified, Secretes of Atlantis looks to stretch the limits of Frazier’s guitar talents to new dimensions and cosmos.
“My mom is a multifaceted artist, and my earliest musical memories are of watching her write songs. I developed a deep love of writing from an early age, thanks to her,” explains Frazier, who kindly answered a few questions for Glide about Secrets of Atlantis and the turmoil around him then. “From June 2022 until April 17th of 2024, I thought I was experiencing a severe case of acid reflux. I started vomiting multiple times a day in 2023, and while that subsided, in 2024, I began experiencing waves of nausea frequently. The nausea was affecting me physically and mentally and was getting worse as time went on. Eventually, I was experiencing nausea spells three times a day.”
“I was unbelievably lucky that the first time someone saw me go unconscious was at lunch with my family doctor’s son in Virginia. After lunch, my friend reported to his father (the doctor I grew up with) that I went unconscious, and I was sent to get an MRI the following morning. I went unconscious again right before the scan, and they found a lesion on my brain on April 17th. I was admitted to the hospital the same day.” These monumental moments and the emotional confusion of medical distress coincided with the release of Secrets of Atlantis. “I began recording Secrets Of Atlantis in 2020 and finished the record in early 2022, right before I moved from my hometown of Winchester, VA, to Seattle, WA. I had planned to release Secrets Of Atlantis on April 26th, 2024, not knowing I would be getting brain surgery the day before, April 25th. The surgery did not have an influence on the album because I didn’t notice symptoms until June of 2022, and by that point, I had already finished writing and recording the album. Those symptoms eventually led to my diagnosis, which required a surgical cure.”
That diagnosis would become a life-altering one. “That evening, I was diagnosed with Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis and learned that all the nausea I was experiencing were, in fact, focal onset seizures. The seizures were caused by a lesion on my brain on my right temporal lobe. Some of my doctors initially hypothesized it could be a glioma (a cancerous lesion that is localized). A few other doctors on my case hypothesized it was a non-cancerous lesion. In that moment, no matter what it was, I felt like I was being given a gift. The two years leading up to that moment involved such severe mental and physical pain that the news there was something causing it that they could remove from my body was almost euphoric despite the gravity of the possibilities. On April 25th, I had a right temporal craniotomy. Through further testing and the pathology results after surgery, they confirmed the lesion was not cancerous. It was Focal Cortical Dysplasia, a congenital defect with a build-up of extra neurons. It’s often found in young children and surgically removed by elementary school. In my case, it took until my late 20s to start dramatically affecting me.”
Thankfully, the surgery was a success. “One day after my surgery, I was moved from the ICU to the neurology unit of the hospital. My surgeon came to check on me and told me the surgery was a success. After giving me that news, he followed it up with, ‘And also, I listened to your music throughout the whole procedure, and I loved the songs. You sound a lot like Neil Young!’” A rave review on your new album coming out of a surgery that answers all of the pain and strife must be better than five stars from any blog.
“I finally got out of the hospital on April 28th after an eleven-day stay for all of my testing, monitoring, and my surgical procedure. I briefly checked my social media to find an outpour of support for the album, even though I hadn’t shared anything about it. WarHen Records, the label that released Secrets of Atlantis, posted a photo of me holding a copy of the album in my hospital bed, still bandaged up with 37 staples in my head. The physical and mental pain I experienced post-surgery was so intense and all-encompassing for the first month after the surgery that the thought of promoting an album was the last thing on my mind.”
With a full recovery on the way and Secrets of Atlantis out in the world, Frazier seems grateful and reflective. When asked about the process of the album, Frazier explained, “I began writing songs for this album at my studio in Virginia in 2020 and felt inspired to make an album where I played most of the instruments. This was the first record I’ve done where I played the drums and lead guitar. I recorded most of the record with my musical confidant, Danny Gibney, in his home studio in Harrisonburg, VA. I also had my friends Jenn Fantaccione and Mark Masefield record some instrumentation remotely due to the pandemic. Everything but the lyrics were improvised. I didn’t write drums or guitar parts ahead of time. Danny and I had a very loose atmosphere in the studio. This allowed us to feel relaxed and create with no constraints.”
That sense of freedom is palpable on free-wheeling cuts like “Disciple of Your Love” and the explosive opener “City of Telos.” The album’s improvisation gives Frazier’s tight song structure a new, relaxed feeling, creating room for the loftiest ideas to flourish in a grandiose guitar-driven manner. “It absolutely changed my approach. I think the sonic aesthetic allowed me to create in a less confined way. I was paying homage to the 60s and 70s aesthetic that inspired me, and that vibe allowed me to feel very free lyrically. Danny and I would add effects on vocals and guitars that I wouldn’t usually try.”
Experimentation is at the core of Secrets of Atlantis, and the complexity only starts at the freeform orchestrations. Frazier writes from a unique perspective that intertwines his folksy storytelling history with this refreshing take on modern psychedelic rock. The sonic sprawl of the album allows for the infectious energy of the rock tunes to sit ever so comfortably next to touching ballads like “Love You Forever” and “Our Many Lifetimes of Love,” two slow-burning tracks driven by acoustics while still falling in line with the hypnotic sonic direction of the album. “‘Love You Forever’ and ‘Our Many Lifetimes of Love’ both focus on a similar topic. Mainly the idea that we travel in soul groups throughout our lifetimes. My wife had a profound and cosmic relationship with her grandmother and is frequently visited by her in her dreams. Listening to her tell me about those experiences led me to write “Love You Forever.” I’m confident that they have been together many times, just as confident as I am that I’ve danced through the cosmos many times with my wife, Steph.”
Frazier’s new approach to his sound did not come out of the blue. Much like the rest of his discography, Secrets of Atlantis was purposeful in its pursuits and pure in its intentions. “I started reading about the lost civilizations of Lemuria and Atlantis right before I created the album, and those stories impacted me profoundly. My fascination with UFOs, underground cities in different dimensions, and searching for a higher state of consciousness also inspired the lyrics.” Evoking the feel of levitation, Frazier makes the unknown materialize through vivid imagery tinted with colorful poetry. “In addition to my readings, I experienced the gift of psilocybin for the first time on New Year’s Eve 2021 going into 2022. I felt a connection to the universe unlike any before in my life. Not long after that experience, I wrote all the lyrics for the album in only two or three days in early 2022. It was the most free I’ve ever felt creatively. It was the fastest I’ve ever written lyrics for an album. I listened to more music in 2020 than ever in my life, so I should also mention that I was deeply inspired by the psychedelic music of the 60s and 70s. I was and always am deeply inspired by the anti-war movement.”
Today, we find Frazier out of the hospital and getting back to his duties as a forward-thinking musician. Secrets of Atlantis was birthed out of the complex curiosity that separates Frazier from his peers. This thirst for answers or anything that could be manipulated into something close to one has Frazier picking up right where he left off. “In 2023, I only wrote about two or three songs. It was so difficult to write every time I sat down and picked up the guitar. I was having the waves of nausea that I now know were seizures, sometimes three or four times a day, and the anxiety and panic I was constantly feeling made focusing on anything I did extremely difficult. However, since the surgery, I’ve written 15 songs in the last three months.” This outpour of seamless creativity sparked something deep inside of Frazier. The artist has finally connected with the spiritual world he was channeling on Secrets of Atlantis.
Frazier leaves us with a big announcement and a few inspiring words, “I’m so excited to share that I will start making what will be my seventh album in August of this year. We also plan on making a short film about the whole experience, and we plan to interview the doctors who saved my life. I’m so incredibly lucky to be alive, and I’m so grateful to have such a kind and loving community in my life. I hope these songs bring a sense of peace to whoever listens, and anyone out there in mental or physical pain please know you’re not alone. End the wars!”
You can directly support Mike Frazier and Secretes of Atlantis via the artist’s Bandcamp here: https://mikefrazierva.bandcamp.com/album/secrets-of-atlantis
