Elsewhere Releasing New Concept Album 'Life... Is A Fraction' Next Month

10-23-2022

(SRO) Prog-leaning alt/power-pop/new wave Boston-based trio Elsewhere--led by frontman and guitarist Michael Aroian and drummer Adam Soucy--will release their musically adventurous and evocative concept album Life...Is A Fraction on November 4.

For their third album, Elsewhere worked with producer and long-time collaborator David Minehan (Replacements, Aerosmith). Life...Is A Fraction weaves together a fascinating, semi-autobiographical narrative about how our perception of time shifts as we grow older. Days, months, and years seem to speed up...until a frightening, life-changing diagnosis--and being forced to face mortality--changes everything once again. The record is based on the cancer diagnosis Aroian received several years ago which served as a defining point in his life.

"I became cognizant of relative time in my 30s," Aroian says. "The idea behind Life...Is A Fraction is that at any age, we have only lived a fraction of our lifespan. When you're five, you've maybe lived 1/16th of say, 80 years. When we're children, life events seem to take much longer because we've only lived a very small part of an average life. In this fraction, the numerator is the number of days you have lived, and the denominator the total number you will ultimately live. In the story we tell on the album, as in my own life, the protagonist's denominator is potentially cut short by getting sick. It sped everything up, and he, like I, was suddenly able to see time move. The more days that go by, the faster time seems to go as we rapidly approach our denominator."

As the protagonist wanders through life before being brutally confronted with his own mortality, he explores various options--face it, embrace it, defy it. Through it all, Life...Is A Fraction teeters precariously on the edge of sanity. "When I was diagnosed with cancer, I experienced this first-hand," says Aroian. "My denominator was reduced. I now literally live it every day. Time is indeed fleeting and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can take control and live each day to the fullest. The tragedy is not that this is happening to us, but that we might not learn from it or do anything proactive or meaningful about it."