about
once it had become clear that sean had rejected this track, i wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. i had some material i had put aside for a noise project (subsequently compiled as inri051) that was meant to merge noise & politics, and i was maybe eager to get back to this idea of music as a political art form.
while there were not lyrics attached to the initial cynicide project, i did already have the idea of a conceptual piece connecting the existing condition of north american society to the idea of trepanning, or self-lobotomising to get the precise point across. we were in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks (which seemed staged even at the point) and the political reaction to them. i felt the need to say something about this, but i didn't want to be too direct or judgmental about it so i compiled a list of samples that presented what i felt reflected the general condition of the world we were living in. the references are broad and vast; there's not really a succinct way to over-simplify it.
the overall context is the view that we were living through the end of the civil rights period. it could be argued that the focus on civil rights accidentally erupted as a reaction to world war two propaganda, hit a high point in the 1960s and began to irreversibly erode at the beginning of the 1980s. in this narrative, the collapse of the twin towers was the final death blow to something the elite never wanted in the first place and was happy to sweep into the trash heap of history.
but, i'm specifically focusing on how this is self-inflicted by our collective desire to be stupid - to drill these holes in our skulls, as though there's some kind of enlightenment in abolishing our ability to understand the world around us, and focus instead on our own short term gains. in that sense, it's an attack on the neo-liberal model and how it encourages us to destroy ourselves.
the spoken word section in the middle was a poem i created out of those word magnets you see on fridges. i was working as an overnight security guard at the time (summer of 2001) and just not sleeping at all. as i was doing my rounds, i stopped and made the poem. i got fired from that job for yelling at a coke machine...
i've considered doing a sample-by-sample breakdown of this but have decided it's neurotic. however, if you want to write an essay, and i like it, i'll link to it.
written and recorded over the first half of 2002. the date attached to the track is july 4, 2002.
credits
from
spoke,
track released July 4, 2002
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, classical), effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, drum manipulation, voice, sampling, digital wave editing, soundscaping, composition, production
sean - ring modulator.
greg - drum performance sample source
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