#u.s.m!

[flamebaitblog]

Stylistically, it’s the CPU equivalent of Naked City’s jump-cut abstractions

Simon Reynolds shares Tiny Mix Tapes review of U.S.M! by DJWWWW with notes.

Read: http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/regurgitaggregation.html

Download U.S.M!: https://flamebait.bandcamp.com/album/u-s-m

[flamebaitblog]

U.S.M! isn’t a statement or critique of the age we’re in, it’s a time capsule; open it as needed

PopMatters review DJWWWW’s U.S.M!

Read: http://www.popmatters.com/review/193681-djwwww-u.s.m/

[flamebaitblog]

its curiosity derives from the feeling that there might be something important to learn from a mind that equates these disparate things, and then so fervently

Djwwww, U.S.M! reviewed in The Wire Issue 376, June 2015, p.54

Buy/Download: http://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/376

[flamebaitblog]

The feed-based god who is forging your existence into a new [far side virtual] reality

Tiny Mix Tapes review of U.S.M! by Djwwww 

Read: http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/djwwww-usm

Download: https://flamebait.bandcamp.com/album/u-s-m

[flamebaitblog]

A micro-montage of and for the digital world, at the same time infinite and transitory

Djwwww | U.S.M!

Lost somewhere between intensified contemporary life, a clinical; high-tech digital aesthetic and paranoia unravelling in panicked energy lies Djwwww’s U.S.M! and it’s avant-garde micro-collages.

Djwwww throws any understanding you once had of sample-based electronics and song structure into disarray from the opening blast of sound and sampling on U.S.M! There are no traditional methods of structure, musical forms or developments here, just moments of calm and subtle bliss before you’re pulled back into the violent cold. Spliced and sparse sound-bites, concerted clashes in style, hyperactivity and clinical reflections of an interceded environment are governed by sometimes obvious, sometimes surprising but always lovingly re-imagined samples. Somehow they collide and make sense of each other in Djwwww’s self-developed purgatory: A place in between worlds, utopia, dystopia and heaven and hell.

Where Djwwww’s contemporaries rarely deviate from religious connotations and Djwwww’s collaged purgatory may have its own such reflections, it’s a world built in science fiction rather than Christianity. Previous work has sampled science fiction videogames, particularly communications between spaceships and AI alerts, building a sense of danger and panic reaction, even paranoia which generally results in chaos. This chaotic and high-tech digital approach abandons the world of electronic music still pining over nostalgic synth sounds and drum machines for one which embraces editing, compiling and mutating data.

Samples are broad, anything from Science Fiction videogame and film to R&B collide but they always feel relevant to contemporary subcultures, whether that be the musical underground, fashion or our obsessions towards social/multimedia applications. Even the briefest clip will relate in this way, as 30-odd minutes unfold like a desperate search for a very specific radio frequency, catching moments and static as the tuning dial turns. More importantly the record is built on sounds collected for sound’s sake and the artist’s personal admirations. That much is obvious, but what happens to them once they are processed and tinkered with is an altogether different beast.

Djwwww refers to his work as ‘Replica’ or ‘Dummy’ and that’s not a bad cogitation - like a new age Frankenstein’s monster, a replica being or dummy, an imitation but with emotional flaws, the work presented here gives the listener a glimpse into a terrifying idea of what kind of world and society could be lurking just around the corner.

Download: https://flamebait.bandcamp.com/album/u-s-m