Download the album here --> https://mcjew.bandcamp.com/album/the-audiovisual-children-of-israel
87/100
I found this gem while scrolling through the recent uploads on the Vaporwave Library website where I came upon the mysterious artist known as MC JEW, an upcoming artist that is primarily focused on muzak aspects in their releases. The album cover displays an 8 bit graphic image of a flower inside a bell jar next to what appears to be a hand mirror, laid in front of a black background. My impression on the album is somewhat construed. What I interpreted from listening is a destruction of nature in our contemporary world. Several songs indicate this theme of imposing threat, citing concepts of selfishness and vanity, as well as the degradation of spirituality in songs like "The General."
The album opens with "Good News", a strange, repetitive, eerie funk tune that encapsulates the impending dread to come in the next songs. The whole album has a very subtle eerieness; it isn't as easy to pinpoint as something like Floral Shoppe, but it's still there. The song ends with a sample of what I assume to be something from an old Christian Sunday School PSA, citing that "we don't have to be afraid if we turn all our anxieties to God", a foreboding statement of our ignorance as humans. Can we really progress by just handing our fears to God; that we don't need to worry because God will take care of it? Is religion about morals and spirituality anymore? Or is it just that we're too lazy to deal with problems that we created. This album asks those questions.
This release is obviously a statement with themes of environmentalism as its forefront, but it isn't as annoying or preachy as something like a crappy folk album about Mount Kilimanjaro or how amazing dolphins are; this is looking at a much bigger picture towards our role as humans in general. The song "L'Observeur est observé" (english: the observer is observed), depicts us, the observers, being watched over and judged, bringing in the theme of religion once more. We are observers, because we are essentially in control as to what happens in the world today. It can also be interpreted that "nature" is being observed by us, the humans, and yet the two are essentially the same rendering it completely pointless and somewhat destructive. It ask the question "Are we really that separated from nature, or did we just make that separation up?"
The album makes a shift in the next two songs, "Animal" and "The General", using tribal, Aboriginal music as its sample-base. "The General" starts off with a very traditional wooden flute melody, but gradually deteriorates into a discombobulated mess, showcasing how our spirituality is at risk of disappearing. We cannot separate ourselves from the world we live in by simply repenting to "God", waiting for judgement day. Could we have checked out as humans - that we don't want to deal with our problems anymore, or ask the important questions of our existence that keep us from degrading to what are essentially beasts?
The rest of the album showcases this theme very well. It slowly transitions to sounds that are electronically made. This post-modernism that has suffocated us, has now begun to trick us into thinking that it's normal, or natural. The track "Interactive Ocean", makes us think that we are still apart of nature, but it has become something new, something disorienting and foreign that we do not really understand.
Overall, I really enjoyed this album. It has a lot of underlying themes that I might have just made up, but are probably for the most part in existence. But that is the beauty of Vaporwave. It isn't really tangible, and you can't really grasp a hold of it. It isn't bogged down by specific melodies or themes, it is subjective to each individual who listens to it. Like the idea of "vapor" itself, it confuses people to thinking if it actually even exists or not. "What am I listening to? Is this even music?" The answer is never determined. Much like life itself.
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