Marty Gray empathizes with loved ones battling dementia, depression, and other personal challenges on his latest album, Disassemble.

“The whole album is autobiographical, it’s just about the people around me,” said the Ann Arbor singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. “It’s rare that there is a song about me, but I’m telling you how I feel about these people throughout the whole record.”

Gray explores that fragility and the observations of a concerned bystander on Disassemble. The album’s poetic lyrics, ethereal vocals, and cinematic instrumentation convey the emotions he encounters while witnessing family and friends decline.

“There are some songs about my friends and the things that they’re going through,” said Gray, who studied opera at the University of Michigan. “There are friends in my life that are losing the battle with depression. I have a couple of songs about my grandparents; I have one about my opa and one about my [late] oma … and my oma’s dementia and seeing what happened with her brain, her mind, and her life.”

Gray ventures into new sonic territory on his fourth album, too, trading his previous pop sound for guitar-driven rock and shoegaze.

“Part of this story is me falling in love with guitar,” Gray said. “And I’ve never been a fabulously talented guitar player. With shoegaze, you don’t have to be a ripper. If the story calls for it and if the story wants it to be big shoegaze with lots of reverb, lots of distortion, lots of everything … [then] let’s go for it.”

To learn more, I spoke with Gray about Disassemble ahead of a January 8 show at The Blind Pig.

Q: You’ve been working as an engineer at Big Sky Recording, Willis Sound, and other local studios. How have those studio sessions been going? 
A: I’m working at Big Sky and doing tons of sessions there. I’m also doing work at Willis and other studios around Detroit. I’ve been finding myself in the room a lot more—either as an engineer or a musician. There’s a place called Redshift where I did a couple of sessions … in Oak Park. I [also] sat down with Dave [Feeny] out of Tempermill [Studio in Ferndale] recently. That place has been around forever and it’s a super-storied place.

Q: You recently developed a passion for shoegaze. How did you fall in love with that genre? 
A: I fell head over heels for the sound and genre. This past year, the shoegaze bands that I loved were Glare, Glixen, Scarlet House, and Loathe. Earlier this year, I didn’t realize that shoegaze was around in the ‘90s and was bubbling up. Grunge was starting to go away and it was starting to turn into something else. And then shoegaze went away for a while and now it’s having a big resurgence.

Q: You’ve encountered some success with Disassemble in the streaming world, especially on Spotify. How has the album resonated with people? 
A: Due to the circumstances in my life, I’ve had a lot of freedom to make music and a lot of motivation to make m­y own music, too. And part of that comes from the weird success—quote unquote—that I’ve had with this record. People like it in a different way; they’re interfacing with it in a way that’s more commercially viable.

But it’s reflected in the Spotify numbers. I haven’t had any more than 60-100 monthly listeners ever—just people in the community or friends. And now, I’ve tapped into people I’ve never spoken to before. That might not seem like a huge deal to someone in this business, but to me, it’s a huge deal. I’m thinking about growing my music [this] year … like in a business way.

Q: The opener, “Atrophy,” examines feeling stagnant, wasting away, and being on a self-destructive path. What inspired you to write such a vulnerable track? 
A: It’s ironic because writing “Atrophy” negated the feelings in “Atrophy.” You write a song like that if you’re frustrated. I’m writing all these songs externally about other people I’m observing. And then, yes, it really sucks to realize that your own brain is contributing feelings, thoughts, and patterns that fit on an album like that.

It was the last song on the record to be included only because the entire album was done, tracked, and written. I was done tracking “DMT” [or “Dimethyltryptamine”], which is the acoustic song and the second to last one [on the album]. It has this acoustic pattern … and I thought, “I know we added a quiet electric guitar version at the end to bring it back into a shoegaze thing.” That became another song and it became the first song … and the whole song was done in a day after that happened. That tells you how I was feeling that particular day.

Q: The title of “Marcescence” is inspired by its Google AI definition: “A phenomenon where some trees and shrubs retain their leaves through winter and into spring, instead of shedding them in the fall.” How did the track turn into a song about friends that fall off over time? 
A: I thought, “I’ve got this great group of friends and this awesome community of musician-type people. It’s terrible when a few of them fall off.” And if you imagine your beautiful garden or your beautiful plant and your friend is a leaf, I think it’s so human for people to fall off in one way or another.

I don’t know one person I’ve talked to that doesn’t have an example like that—like, “Oh yeah, my buddy from college, he totally fell off or he’s going through something.” [I] wrote the song and I went to Google after the song was done and I [typed], “What is it called when leaves die on a [plant]?” And Google [results showed], “The scientific word is marcescence,” and I said, “Oh, OK, well, that’s what the song is going to be called.”

I think “Marcescence” is the first song that I titled that way and I ended up titling every song on the album something confusing and cryptic … or a word that you would probably have to look up. I looked up most of them … with Google [by typing], “What is it called when …?” and then I would describe something.

Q: “Lethologica” is defined as the inability to remember a particular word or name. In the context of your song, it represents the struggle of someone experiencing mental decline. How did your late grandmother and The Notebook inspire this track? 
A: I wanted to write a song from the point of view of someone who is going through mental decline. Everyone knows that scene from The Notebook where [the woman] realizes that the [guy] has been her husband the whole time. Everything clicks into place … and I can’t imagine what that must feel like. “Lethologica” is from the point of view of that person.

And “Lethologica” is the one that’s the biggest song on the record and people on TikTok really like that song. The hook is easy, and it’s “I think I love you,” so people don’t realize it’s about someone going through mental decline.

Q: “Beksiński” uncovers the death and decay left behind after a tragedy, yet depicts the growth that happens years later. How did Polish painter/photographer Zdzisław Beksiński and World War II concentration camps in Poland inspire this track? 
A: He’s such an interesting part of my last year, too. I stumbled upon his artwork after going to an art museum in The Netherlands … and at the same time I was reading The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich. He dealt with the fallout of Poland and how the Germans wrecked Poland for a long time. I was reading [the book] and thinking about all these interpersonal things. Looking Beksiński up and reading his [Wikipedia entry] and realizing, “He lived terribly. … Most of the people in his life were murdered or tragically died.”

He was stabbed by a student … and his life was wrecked and evil, and it was terrible. Not only is his artwork that way, but his life details are part of the album's theme. The lyrics are all about war, how someone can unravel due to PTSD, and how fruitless war can be for so many people. They almost give their lives and they give their minds for the rest of their lives and [rarely] reap any meaningful reward.

The hook is “The grass reclaims,” and most of it says, “The earth doesn’t care.” I didn’t want to restrict the album to be about people in my immediate surroundings. I personally don’t know anyone who’s struggling with PTSD and I don’t know anyone who’s been to Afghanistan. I know they’re everywhere and it’s a huge issue, but it wasn’t something I wanted to force. Beksiński totally launched the song.

Q: “Mind Flayer” explores feeling controlled by an outside force and feeling trapped in your own body. How did the mind flayer creature from Dungeons & Dragons help shape the track’s theme? 
A: With “Mind Flayer,” one of my close friends who I play disc golf with was describing being in the hospital with substance abuse / mental health struggles. [He] was describing during the round how your conscience can be subverted by instinct—and in this case—addiction. All of your decision-making can be subverted and it’s crazy that that can happen. The fact that an opioid can turn an otherwise normal person into someone who will commit all of their willpower to manipulate. And he described feeling that way as someone else going in and overriding all of the controls. It’s like some [guy] coming in and saying, “I own this house now, you don’t—I live here.”

When that was happening, I was also playing Baldur’s Gate, which is a Dungeons & Dragons game. The very concept of mind flayer is there’s a little alien in your brain and no one is sure who has been co-opted. The entire world lives in this sphere of thinking, “Maybe someone’s not who they say they are, or are they really themselves?”

I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to either a thought virus or addiction. [For example], is this person acting as themselves or have they been radicalized by social media? What would they be like if they didn’t fall into this crazy far right or far left camp? That sentiment takes a lot of different forms, and “Mind Flayer” is looser. It’s mainly based on the conversation I had with my friend. I thought it was so interesting how he described it as someone [who] goes in and takes control and takes over the motherboard.

Q: “Ipseity” examines the void someone feels inside and the struggle to hold onto their authentic self. How does this track reflect your late grandmother’s battle with dementia? 
A: This song is strangely more literal than it seems. It reads more ethereal and metaphysical than it is. It’s me observing my grandmother. She was uptight and super worried about cleanliness and sanitizing the walls and the ceiling all the time.

And then her decline caused her to become super aloof, happy, and strangely vacant all the time. It got me thinking about what happens when you start to disassociate under strong hallucinogens. For whatever reason, your brain has mechanisms built into it where you can view yourself outside of yourself. I find that unbelievably nuts … but I’ve heard people going through dementia and Alzheimer’s ... describe feelings like that.

They’ll move their arms or fingers and say, “Someone’s moving their fingers by me,” and they start to think their muscle twitches are someone else’s. My oma must have been experiencing that at some point. That song is not only about how uncanny it felt to watch my oma go through that and how uncanny her actions were but also how uncanny it must feel to go through that yourself.

Q: Tell me about the creative process Disassemble. How long did you spend writing and recording the 11 tracks for it? 
A: This album happened quickly. I started in late February and it was done by June. Initially, I was gonna put it out and leave it, but the album gained a little bit of traction. I did the guitar and bass in my [apartment] and I did drums at Big Sky.

I did vocals at Big Sky, but the only reason I did them at Big Sky was because I couldn't sing loud in my apartment. I didn’t track [the vocals] into the equipment, I used a [Shure] SM7 [microphone] and tracked directly into the laptop for vocals. I did want that coming-apart-at-the-seams, lower-quality sound. I went back and forth on how I was going to do that because I knew I wanted to start doing shoegaze rock stuff. I fell so hard, so I thought, “What’s the play?”

Q: How did the album’s lo-fi shoegaze sound come together for you? 
A: Tracking a hi-fi, crisp album was within my purview, but the story that was coming about called for something different. It wanted to be more low quality. The story I wanted to tell didn’t need a ton of production, so that’s why I didn’t take as long. The songs are also simple because I was starting to play guitar and I didn’t feel like the album needed these crazy songs. I just needed a couple of chords here and there and let the big texture take control. 

Q: You’re performing January 8 at The Blind Pig and featuring With Brevity, The Blank, and PJ Roberts on the show’s lineup. What plans do you have for the show? 
A: I have a great relationship with The Blind Pig and I’ve been putting shows together with them for a long time. The January 8 [show] is a follow-up to a show I did in August. I didn’t headline that one, but it goes along with this whole idea of [me saying], “I’m gonna try now and perform live. I’m gonna try to make this music thing work.”

PJ is one of my buds—he’s a songwriter from Detroit. He has a lot of connections and he’s involved in a lot of people’s musical lives. He said, “I want to perform some of my songs that I’ve written,” and I said, “You should open for me.” With Brevity is a band that I found on TikTok and they’re from Toledo, and I said, “You guys are dope … and we should do a show together.”

The Blank came into Big Sky … and they’re four dudes from Tecumseh. They’re one of the most unique metal sounds that I've heard. I was so enamored with their sound and ... we made a whole record together last year and their record Piggyback just came out. It’s super cool and awesome raw metal energy. I asked them to keep recording with me … and they offered to be my backing band at one point. And later on, down the line, they said, “Would you ever play rhythm guitar for us?” Now I’m in the back playing with The Blank, too.

Q: What’s up next for you in 2025? 
A: I’ll have a new album for [this] year. The main sonic space will be like ML Buch or Mk.gee … and Mk.gee’s aesthetic is like yacht rock from the ‘90s. ML Buch is sort of that, but she’s a little synthy-er. It’s things like clean guitar and [being] super chorus-y—like lo-fi vibes. The new sonic space is injecting that into the already-existing shoegaze tapestry. The next album is all tracked in studios with the best equipment.

Lori Stratton is a library technician, writer for Pulp, and writer and editor of strattonsetlist.com.

Marty Gray performs January 8 with With Brevity, The Blank, and PJ Roberts at The Blind Pig, 208 South First Street, Ann Arbor. For tickets, visit The Blind Pig’s website.