It’s the first Thursday of August – or at least it is as I’m writing this – and I’m en route to Greenpoint, Brooklyn to meet with singer-songwriter Mark Ciani. Debuting tonight at a local theater is a documentary starring Ciani, shot, edited, directed by Warren Tyler Ward.

Ciani’s new album, Utopia, isn’t set to be released for a few more weeks, but the documentary will offer a sneak peek into the recording process for the album. The first two singles, “Fault Lines” and “Heaven Can’t Be Eternity” served as the soundtrack to my drive, along with Ciani’s 2025 release, The Catacombs.

After parking, I had some time to walk around the neighborhood and revisit a chapter of my life that I’d spent living in Greenpoint by way of walking around and playing the game of “is that building still there or is it a high rise now?” Often the latter, unfortunately, but I digress.

Still, the reflection on the past is relevant to Ciani’s music, particularly his sound, as it evokes a 90’s nostalgia. Not in a imitative sense but in a spiritual evocation, and in turn the music carries a warmth and reflective sentiment. Ciani traces his own influences somewhere between ’70s songwriters and ’90s indie, but he’s stopped taking the comparisons personally, mostly.

Early in our conversation we discussed the inherent stress in the moments between “your music reminds me of” and whatever it is that they inevitably say next. “It says more about what the person’s listening to than what my music actually sounds like,” Ciani says. Fair, equally, to every comparison; the ones he likes and the ones he doesn’t.

There’s a real shift in how Ciani talks about songwriting now versus fifteen years ago. “I was very much of the mind that lyrics don’t matter that much,” Ciani says. “That it’s instead about melodies and harmonies and arrangements, things like that. And of course it is, but lyrics matter, especially to people that aren’t musicians.”

It can be easy to get lost in the arrangements when you’ve recruited a band of seriously talented musicians to accompany you, but the charm of the lyrics in tracks like “Heaven Can’t Be Eternity” show that sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.

The same could be said for the yin and yang of Ciani’s life paths where his nights are spent as a musician but his days are spent as a corporate litigator. “They’re obviously completely different,” begins Ciani, “but I’m equally obsessive about both. The editing process of writing a song and writing a brief to the court, it’s a very similar sort of, you know, ‘it’s not done until like the deadline comes’ mentality.”

While the pursuit of a career outside of music, particularly one as demanding as being a lawyer, would understandably slow the creative process for anyone, Ciani steers heavily in the opposite direction. “I’m just making a record every 18 months pretty much,” he says.

More impressive is that the albums are often whittled down from a pool of as many as 60 songs, a process where Ciani’s collaboration with and trust in producer Fernando Lodeiro becomes especially important.

With the release of Utopia on the horizon, Ciani sounds like a man mostly relieved to be done carrying it. “I already feel like I’ve done what I set out to do. If people like it or listen to it, that’s gravy on top.”

As to the experience he hopes for listeners, Ciani draws influence from his experience listening to R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People. “That record makes me think about what it means to be alive,” Ciani says. “I think my my lyrics were definitely influenced by that, and so hopefully it’s that kind of a thoughtful experience.”

It’s a feat Ciani had already achieved, for me at least, given my earlier escape into the warmth of 90’s nostalgia. Utopia promises to keep the buzz going, and the documentary certainly built anticipation for the album’s release.

Ciani’s focus and dedication to his craft was clear throughout the film, as were his bandmates commitment and excitement to be along for the ride. The documentary painted a picture of comfortable collaboration in the pursuit of musical creation, within the walls of a gorgeous repurposed church, the aptly named Dreamland Studios in the Catskills of New York.

Utopia is out on all platforms this Friday, August 21st. The documentary is available to watch now on YouTube.