Marty Anderson thinks it would almost be best if people didn’t know who he was—at least when it comes to those listening to his albums. “I always try to take the music for what it is,” says the California native in his home in Fremont, “so it can hit you clean and see what kind of reaction it gives you without thinking about who made it or anything like that. That’s the ideal for me. I wish that people don’t know much about me at all. That’s fine. I don’t think it’s that important, as long as the music is there.”
For the past seventeen years, Anderson has spent much of his musical career attempting to separate his work from the context in which it was made, ultimately with little success. Whether examining his early work fronting Fremont indie rock band Dilute, his collaborations as one-half of ambient pop duo Howard Hello with Pinback’s Kenseth Thibideau, or his current compositions under the pseudonym Okay, it becomes all too easy to pigeonhole everything Anderson does within the framework of his illness. Diagnosed with a rare form of Crohn’s Disease, a chronic stomach disorder that has kept him confined to his home and connected to an I.V. on an almost hourly basis, Anderson acknowledges that the ailing artist angle has “been my story for many years.” And though he admits his condition is the greatest limitation and challenge in his life, it has nothing to do with his latest recording effort, Huggable Dust (Absolutely Kosher). “Everybody has their stuff to deal with. It shouldn’t have anything to do with whether you like the music or not. I don’t think it’s necessary. I know that’s not [the case].”
Anderson’s eighteen tracks of unique pop minimalism, drawn from the past eight years, resign themselves to a common thematic foundation: love. His weary, rasping vocals provide the complementary intimacy to his use of acoustics, horns, glockenspiels, kazoos, and quirky samples. Anderson’s lyrical refrains tread the landscape of the everyday relationship from all sides, from the sentimentally sweet “My” to the broken-hearted acceptance of “Natural.”
“I never wanted to put these songs out before because I never really—you know they were personal,” says Anderson. “I didn’t think they were saying that much. But then the more I listened to them and the longer it went on I realized that I felt that they were good enough to put out. To me it’s just kind of like a purging of that material. Every song has some sort of sentimental attachment I don’t really want to dwell on [anymore].”
With the release of Huggable Dust, and with two more albums worth of material already written, Anderson has engaged himself with a renewed sense of opportunity. Despite being at a self-described “low point” in his activity and energy, he is determined to find alternative avenues to reach his audience. Together with the support of his label Absolutely Kosher, Anderson has been toying with the idea of unique virtual tour, where a video recording or broadcast of him playing a set of songs would be shown in a gallery setting that also featured his original artwork.
“I think I’m definitely coming into a more positive way of thinking,” says Anderson. “I’ve spent seventeen years of my life in kind of a dark mentality and I’m coming out of that now. It’s really great to look at life, have a positive outlook, and not feel like you’re kidding yourself.”
– Mike Hilleary