Music has the power to open gateways -- to other worlds, inner realities to variant futures. Various electronic artists -- particularly in electro-pop, darkwave and related genres -- take me to a very Gibson-sque future. You know the one, where chrome burns and neon ziggurats pierce a static-colored sky.
I really needed to tap into that vibe the other day, so I followed the algorithmic thread through the musical labyrinth and acquainted myself with a couple of albums that I feel the need to share here...
Up first is R.U.R. by French electronic artist Djedjotronic -- which is just an absurdly good album that delivers something of a fragmented history of an Euro android rebellion to my mind. I hear in it the driving pulse of droid-hunting pursuit, the dark and winding urban streets where we glimpse the furtive movements of humanoid figures, ready to turn the electric blade back on the agents of tyranny.
Let me give you a taste. Here's the track Cops:
Djedjotronic also busts out an excellent cover of Tubeway Army's 1979 hit Are 'Friends' Electric? with vocals by Lokier. It's already a track that Gary Numan attributes to Asperger's and the work of such sci-fi writes as Philip K. Dick. So it's already a song about isolation, dehumanization and the contradictory warm embrace of the machine. Djedjotronic seeps into the darker roots of this equation and Lokier's alien vocals invoke a sense of possible tragedy.
Djedjotronic lurks on Soundcloud, where he posts quite a few mixes as well -- and you can listen to his tracks on Spotify.
I also dove into the music of Linea Aspera, namely their self-titled 2012 LP. It strikes a similar tone for me, but with more glitter than gristle. Zoè Zanias's stirring vocals bring an enhanced emotional quality to Ryan Ambridge's synth work. There's a feeling of trepidatious hope to the sonic vibe here. Consider the track Synapse below...
Lyrically, the entire album is full of emotion and anatomy text-book metaphors that serve nicely to counterbalance the electric vibe. Attica, off their follow-up album Preservation Bias, provides another excellent taste of their sonic vibe:
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