Good God, 1.2 hours of mesmerizing subtle beats, twinkling notes, and anything else along the vast soundscape of IDM.
I can honestly say I’ve never heard anything like this album, EVER, and that’s saying a lot. “Art is a Division of Pain” is an extremely rare release from Psi Performer, the side project of electro producer Anthony Rother.
Rother’s music is usually noted by droning machine-like beats, sirens, and vocals spilling out from vocoding devices, the stuff that Detroit house music is known for- dance music. But, as Psi Performer, he takes on another persona, delving into experimental waters, fishing for new sounds, textures, and musical concepts to make you flex your brain, not necessarily just your hips.
In “Art is a Division of Pain”, he introduces Posthumanism into his well-thought-out creation, incorporating a serious, melancholy mood into all thirteen songs, reflecting the consequences of technological process and the tumultuous relationship between humans and machines (easy, natural sounds building into complex machines, breaking barriers between human bodies and bots).
I am so excited to own this CD, containing the song “1995”, which I heard first on Limbik Frequencies back during freshmen year of highschool, when my curiosity for music was just revving up.
Here is “1995” in all its lo-fi, computer-beat glory:
And another favorite “1999”, starts up with a misty synth line:
Blips 'n' Bleeps 