After a decade-long hiatus, My Satellite returns with Person, an immersive, psychedelic concept album that charts the emotional arc of a relationship from euphoric beginnings to its inevitable end.
The Los Angeles-based band, led by Bryan Stage and Andy Marshall, has poured nearly eight years into crafting this record, and the result is a stunning, deeply personal sonic journey that resonates with raw emotion and profound introspection.
Recorded at Drooping Rug Studios, Person is more than just a breakup album—it's an experience. From the electrifying intensity of "Minotaur," which captures the rush of the new attraction, to the dreamlike melancholy of "Tangles & Virtues," where reality sinks in, every track is a chapter in a larger, cohesive narrative. The album finds its resolution with "Morning," a moment of clarity and hope, proving that even after heartbreak, there is always a new beginning.
Musically, Person is a lush fusion of psychedelic textures, indie rock sensibilities, and deeply emotive lyricism. Its storytelling is fearless and vulnerable, amplified by the band's meticulous production and willingness to let instinct—along with a touch of psychedelic inspiration—guide the process.
At its core, Person is a love letter to the album's art. My Satellite encourages listeners to experience it in full—front to back—as a single, cohesive piece. In a culture driven by playlists and singles, this album reminds us of the power of immersive storytelling through music. With Person, My Satellite has not only redefined its sound but also reaffirmed its place in the indie music landscape.
"Person" is a deeply immersive concept album that takes listeners through the highs and lows of a relationship, from passion to heartbreak to self-discovery. How did your personal experiences shape this journey, and were there any moments in the songwriting process that felt particularly cathartic or challenging?
All of my writing comes from a foundation of personal experience, which I then often embellish, turn the perspective around, and generally mold it into something that isn’t necessarily autobiographical but still feels true to me.
When we started writing, Andy and I had both come out of difficult breakups so making a breakup album seemed appropriate, but I didn’t want to just make an album that wallows in the heartbreak. I wanted to also celebrate the joys of a relationship: the sex, the love, the fights, the breakup, and everything in between. Once we had the intention, the songs seemed to fall into place, but we were also changing our sound during this process, so it was very challenging to get the song to match the idea that we both had in our heads.
There were dozens of rewrites, re-recordings, and remixes to get the album just right. It was really tough keeping that focus over the course of all the years and not getting discouraged when life got in the way. There were times when we didn’t make any progress for months and months. But when we finally got each song right, and the finished product was exactly what we knew it could be all these years, the feeling of that accomplishment was unlike anything we’d felt before. I guess you could say catharsis, but that doesn’t seem to quite cover it.
You describe Person as a psychedelic concept album that should be experienced in full, rather than as individual tracks. In an era dominated by playlists and singles, what do you hope this album rekindles in listeners about the lost art of the full-length album experience?
To us, there is no better experience than listening to a well-thought-out album that is fantastic
from start to finish. Playlists and singles are a fun way to listen to music, but to me a poor way to enjoy the art that music can be. One of my earliest music memories is listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and I remember being blown away by how it all fit together so beautifully to create this deep story of dealing with loss and trauma. It’s a novel. “Another Brick In The Wall” and “Comfortably Numb” are incredible chapters in that novel, but they’re just excerpts. They’re not the whole story. Person is more than the sum of its parts, and I hope that if we keep on that point then at least some people will be intrigued enough to listen from start to finish. If we’ve done our jobs well then it should be enjoyable and understandable as a singular work of art. If we’ve done our jobs really well, and perhaps with the aid of some chemical enhancers, listening to our album could be a very memorable experience that they can’t stop thinking about.
The album was self-produced and took nearly a decade to complete, evolving alongside you as artists and individuals. How did this extended creative process shape the final sound of Person, and were there any pivotal moments where you felt the album took a completely new direction?
The most pivotal moment in my mind had nothing to do with writing the album. In 2017, Andy
and I had been working on the album but hadn’t really made much headway. We essentially
were on our way to writing another Lift. It would have been fine. That’s all. Just fine. After a night out in downtown LA, Andy and I came back to my place and decided to drop acid and listen to music until the morning. It was a pretty transformative experience that gave us both an education on things that were lacking in our music.
We came out of that night changed. When we got back into the studio we basically threw out everything we had been working on, tore the songs we had down to their bones and then rebuilt with a whole new mindset. That night was the prologue to the next decade of our lives.
Your music has always blended lush, psychedelic textures with deeply personal storytelling. What role did psychedelics, instinct, and emotional vulnerability play in shaping Person, both sonically and lyrically?
Psychedelics were a huge part of our journey. Not only did it kick off the vision for the album in our heads, but we did a lot of writing on shrooms or acid. It’s amazing being creative in that
state, and I think we would have a hard time recognizing the album without their involvement.
We would sit in the studio from 8 pm to 8 am, putting down all kinds of sounds and letting the
song takes us wherever it feels right to explore.
We intentionally set out to write an album that we would want to listen to while on psychedelics, so that informed pretty much every decision we made. With the relationship theme that we had in place for the album, it was very easy and natural to be emotionally vulnerable lyrically. I think my lyrics are usually fairly vulnerable, but with this album, I had more of a linear objective, and so my lyrics became more narrative.
They aren’t quite as emotionally abstract as some of our older songs. I needed the story to make sense and give the listener something clear to lean on so that when the music gets a bit wild and strange, the lyrics still grind you in some kind of reality.
From Telescopes to Lift and now Person, My Satellite has undergone evolution in both sound and lineup. How has the band’s journey—through lineup changes, creative reinvention, and personal growth—shaped the music you’re making today?
I started My Satellite as a little solo bedroom project. In the early albums I wrote almost
everything in Logic with virtual instruments and amp modelers. Aside from my vocals and
guitars, everything else was digital and doggedly diatonic. Meeting Andy was like meeting a
better version of me who had similar taste in music, greater knowledge of music theory and
production than I had at the time, and was far more dedicated to working outside of the
computer.
Using more analog synths and keys, ditching standard arpeggiators, and committing to using natural drums almost exclusively have been one of the biggest factors in our change in sound, all thanks to his influence. I’ve never experienced a musical partnership that is as fulfilling and easy to navigate as I have with Andy. As tough and arduous the journey was to get Person across the finish line, I can’t wait to do it again on the next one.