section: alt-j's new album (1K words) #5
Description
i'm not entirely sure what to make of the two singles already released from relaxer. one thing that is pretty clear to me though is that an analysis of these two two songs definitely fits into the narrative of this piece. and i think they can at least be read as a aesthetic interpretation of the alienation that is so prevalent across contemporary cyborg social reality: 3WW talks about "just want[ing] to love you in my own language" and "love is just a just a button we pressed." in other words, it's a song about the struggle to find a personal language and emotional connection in a cyborg world.
(I recently heard someone refer to Tinder dating as "microwave dating" - it kinds of feels and looks like dating, and it comes at us at the speed we want to it, so it's "good enough;" in the way a microwave apple pie won't have near the emotional connection to us as a homemade apple pie. It gets us the results we want without the process, emotional connections ((such as pride, or family connections)) that grounds the very thing that make homemade apple pie so special)
this seems like a leap, of course, until seeing the glitchy cyberpunk video that accompanied the song's release on youtube. i don't think those are merely pretty visuals, they point to something far more interesting going on behind the scenes of this song.
meanwhile, "in cold blood" talks about utopia and partying, but in the context of a failed summer party. but i think the piece is much deeper than that (it literally starts with joe newman screaming the binary representation of the "∆" symbol, produced by typing "alt-j" on a mac laptop.) so i'm wondering if there's actually a sense of failed digital utopia that can be read out of this: ie we were told this future would be better, but indeed has been anything but. for all the reasons that permeate this thinking.
moreover, i'm wondering if this album represents the the foundation of whatever comes after (or whatever becomes commercialized out of) vaporwave. there's currently a permeation of this kind of aesthetic entering public consciousness through popular art and what could be almost called "popular music," very similar to the way that dubstep went partially "mainstream" a few years ago.
why is this art attractive to us? the visuals are pretty, sure, and the lights are flashy, but I wonder if something more interesting is going on with movement: namely, it feels like we're approaching a moment of cultural uneasiness with the cyborg world we suddenly find ourselves in the grasp of, and it would make sense that our popular art and aesthetics would be the first battleground in terms of resisting those forces. as the artists, intentionally or not, explore these things before the philosophers and intellectuals can give them words and structures.