Negativland — True False (25 Oct., 2019)
•⇔• Samostatně styloví „Jammers kultury“, propagující umění hudebního přivlastnění. ⇔⊗♠♣♦♥⊕⇔
Origin: Concord, California, United States
Genre: Electronic
Style: Sound Collage, Musique Concrète, IDM, Glitch, Noise, Industrial plunderphonics, avant~garde
Album release: 25 Oct. 2019
Record Label: Seeland
Duration: 17:37+15:34+20:10+11:21 = 64:42
Tracks:
Side One
A1. Either Or 0:48
A2. Limbo 4:14
A3. Discernment 4:31
• Drums: Prairie Prince
A4. Certain Men 5:00
A5. Melt The North Pole 3:03
• Drums: Prairie Prince
Side Two
B1. Fourth Of July 3:38
B2. Mounting The Puppy 3:02
• Guitar: Ava Mendoza
B3. One Bee At A Time 2:53
B4. Secret Win 0:56
B5. Destroying Anything 5:05
• Piano [Prepared]: M.C. Schmidt
Side Three
C1. Cadillac 5:18
C2. This Is Not Normal 3:29
• Chorus [The Not Normal Animal Chorus]: Aasha Bhosle, Beatrice, Dee Dee, Méabh de Siún, Neela, Ruby, Savanna, Stella, Vivian
C3. Yesterday Hates Today 1:44
• Percussion: Ima Nava Dunkelman
C4. True False 9:39
Side Extra
D1. Melt The North Pole (Flat Version) 3:21
D2. This Is Not Normal (Normal Version) 8:00
Members:
• Mark Hosler
• Richard Lyons
• Don Joyce
• Ian Allen
• David Wills (aka “The Weatherman”)
• Peter Conheim
• Jon Leidecker (aka “Wobbly”)
Notes:
• The first of two interconnected albums, it comes as a double vinyl LP or a single CD
• Guest artists on this record include: Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Byrne/Eno, XTC), M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), guitarist Ava Mendoza, and percussionist Nava Dunkelman
• Two bonus tracks are on vinyl version only
• A long~awaited return to songwriting, with three tracks ‘sung’ by The Weatherman (aka founding member David Wills)
• Thomas Dimuzio Mastering
• First new studio album in five years
• Cover and label paintings by long time Negativland collaborator Dan Lynch
• True False was composed, performed, produced, recorded, mixed and edited by Negativland
• Gatefold cover with 24 page booklet.
• LPs are in an extra wide sleeve with printed inner sleeves
AllMusic Review by Paul Simpson; Score: ★★★★
•⇔• More than three decades after Negativland coined the term “culture jamming,” the group’s media subversion tactics have become commonplace in the era of social media, memes, YouTube, and “fake news.” True False, the first of two interconnected studio albums from the plunderphonic pioneers, examines the media’s effect on our mental health and our perception of reality, touching on subjects such as climate control and the collapse of capitalism. The release is a return to the style of collage~songs heard on some of the band’s best~known works, like Escape from Noise and Dispepsi, and perhaps the most exciting news for longtime fans is that the Weatherman, the group’s notoriously reclusive vocalist who hasn’t contributed to any of their albums since the early 2000s, is all over this one. While his gloriously humdrum vocal intonation and surreal asides are always a delight, the cast of thousands unwillingly providing the album’s source material are the stars of the show. Many of the sound bytes and concepts used on this album have been staples of Negativland’s live performances and Over the Edge radio broadcasts for ages, including material devised by Don Joyce, Richard Lyons, and Ian Allen, three significant members of the group who passed away a few years before the album was released. Even with the presence of older content, the album in no way resembles a clearinghouse of old ideas — it’s plainly obvious that they’ve been working on this material for a long time, and saving it for the right project. On “Certain Men,” the ever~perky Weatherman exclaims that “certain men will always get their way in the end, and the government wants it that way!” over a blippy dance beat. “Cadillac,” another long~running OTE bit, twists a mantra~like repetition of the titular brand name around zipping car noises and a clapping rhythm, while the Weatherman spouts out nonsensical street names. Most outrageous of all is “Fourth of July,” centered around the temper tantrum of an edgelord who rants that nobody will share any of her 15 daily Facebook posts, and that social media outlets are “all tools of the left” which should be used against them. Just as disturbing and hilarious is “Mounting the Puppy,” in which a business executive describes “happiness engineering” techniques — a series of employee motivational programs that sound like bizarre hazing rituals. Like the best of Negativland’s work, True False is both absurdly humorous and frighteningly relevant.
•⇔• https://www.allmusic.com/album/true-false-mw0003315031
About:
What is True False?
• It’s more than two things, and as of 2019 it’s also a new album by the semi~legendary multimedia collective known as Negativland. True False is a full length return to all original music that you could almost mistake for actual songs — albeit ones sung by dozens of sampled vocalists who have never met — and is a prime example of what we used to call experimental music, but now just call social media. It’s your own inescapable subjectivity made catchy as we witness the entrenched political beliefs of left and right cleanly switching sides in under one generation. It’s the first Negativland album to come with a lyric sheet, and a reminder that we need more than just one memory before we can safely tell anyone else that this is not normal.
Is this a concept album?
• The first of two interconnected double albums, True False musically tackles concerns that will be familiar to any surviving fans of the band: our nervous systems, our realities, and the evolving forms of media that inevitably insert themselves between the two. A series of seemingly random topics are slowly woven together: shootings, bees, the right’s rules for radicals, climate control, dogs pretending to be children, the oil we eat, and the right of every American to believe whatever they want to believe — your brain’s ear lets nothing remain entirely random. It’s not the content, it’s the edit that shows us what we all know to be true, and it’s the things that one is most tempted to enjoy as harmless entertainment that often turn out to be living animals. Splicing together Occupy mic checks with US militia rallies, FOX news hosts with ecoterrorists, and your own sanity with the home viewing habits of Negativland’s lead vocalist, the Weatherman, when you put the word ‘True’ next to the word ‘False’, a broader reality reveals itself.
Albums:
• Negativland (1980)
• Points (1981)
• A Big 10~8 Place (1983)
• Escape from Noise (1987)
• Helter Stupid (1989)
• Free (1993)
• Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 (1995)
• Dispepsi (1997)
• These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit (2001)
• Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak (2002)
• No Business (2005)
• Thigmotactic (2008)
• It’s All in Your Head (2014)
• True False (2019)
• The World Will Decide (Nov. 13, 2020)
Website: https://www.negativland.com/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDXxnDtO_I
•⇔• Samostatně styloví „Jammers kultury“, propagující umění hudebního přivlastnění. ⇔⊗♠♣♦♥⊕⇔
Origin: Concord, California, United States
Genre: Electronic
Style: Sound Collage, Musique Concrète, IDM, Glitch, Noise, Industrial plunderphonics, avant~garde
Album release: 25 Oct. 2019
Record Label: Seeland
Duration: 17:37+15:34+20:10+11:21 = 64:42
Tracks:
Side One
A1. Either Or 0:48
A2. Limbo 4:14
A3. Discernment 4:31
• Drums: Prairie Prince
A4. Certain Men 5:00
A5. Melt The North Pole 3:03
• Drums: Prairie Prince
Side Two
B1. Fourth Of July 3:38
B2. Mounting The Puppy 3:02
• Guitar: Ava Mendoza
B3. One Bee At A Time 2:53
B4. Secret Win 0:56
B5. Destroying Anything 5:05
• Piano [Prepared]: M.C. Schmidt
Side Three
C1. Cadillac 5:18
C2. This Is Not Normal 3:29
• Chorus [The Not Normal Animal Chorus]: Aasha Bhosle, Beatrice, Dee Dee, Méabh de Siún, Neela, Ruby, Savanna, Stella, Vivian
C3. Yesterday Hates Today 1:44
• Percussion: Ima Nava Dunkelman
C4. True False 9:39
Side Extra
D1. Melt The North Pole (Flat Version) 3:21
D2. This Is Not Normal (Normal Version) 8:00
Members:
• Mark Hosler
• Richard Lyons
• Don Joyce
• Ian Allen
• David Wills (aka “The Weatherman”)
• Peter Conheim
• Jon Leidecker (aka “Wobbly”)
Notes:
• The first of two interconnected albums, it comes as a double vinyl LP or a single CD
• Guest artists on this record include: Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Byrne/Eno, XTC), M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), guitarist Ava Mendoza, and percussionist Nava Dunkelman
• Two bonus tracks are on vinyl version only
• A long~awaited return to songwriting, with three tracks ‘sung’ by The Weatherman (aka founding member David Wills)
• Thomas Dimuzio Mastering
• First new studio album in five years
• Cover and label paintings by long time Negativland collaborator Dan Lynch
• True False was composed, performed, produced, recorded, mixed and edited by Negativland
• Gatefold cover with 24 page booklet.
• LPs are in an extra wide sleeve with printed inner sleeves
AllMusic Review by Paul Simpson; Score: ★★★★
•⇔• More than three decades after Negativland coined the term “culture jamming,” the group’s media subversion tactics have become commonplace in the era of social media, memes, YouTube, and “fake news.” True False, the first of two interconnected studio albums from the plunderphonic pioneers, examines the media’s effect on our mental health and our perception of reality, touching on subjects such as climate control and the collapse of capitalism. The release is a return to the style of collage~songs heard on some of the band’s best~known works, like Escape from Noise and Dispepsi, and perhaps the most exciting news for longtime fans is that the Weatherman, the group’s notoriously reclusive vocalist who hasn’t contributed to any of their albums since the early 2000s, is all over this one. While his gloriously humdrum vocal intonation and surreal asides are always a delight, the cast of thousands unwillingly providing the album’s source material are the stars of the show. Many of the sound bytes and concepts used on this album have been staples of Negativland’s live performances and Over the Edge radio broadcasts for ages, including material devised by Don Joyce, Richard Lyons, and Ian Allen, three significant members of the group who passed away a few years before the album was released. Even with the presence of older content, the album in no way resembles a clearinghouse of old ideas — it’s plainly obvious that they’ve been working on this material for a long time, and saving it for the right project. On “Certain Men,” the ever~perky Weatherman exclaims that “certain men will always get their way in the end, and the government wants it that way!” over a blippy dance beat. “Cadillac,” another long~running OTE bit, twists a mantra~like repetition of the titular brand name around zipping car noises and a clapping rhythm, while the Weatherman spouts out nonsensical street names. Most outrageous of all is “Fourth of July,” centered around the temper tantrum of an edgelord who rants that nobody will share any of her 15 daily Facebook posts, and that social media outlets are “all tools of the left” which should be used against them. Just as disturbing and hilarious is “Mounting the Puppy,” in which a business executive describes “happiness engineering” techniques — a series of employee motivational programs that sound like bizarre hazing rituals. Like the best of Negativland’s work, True False is both absurdly humorous and frighteningly relevant.
•⇔• https://www.allmusic.com/album/true-false-mw0003315031
About:
What is True False?
• It’s more than two things, and as of 2019 it’s also a new album by the semi~legendary multimedia collective known as Negativland. True False is a full length return to all original music that you could almost mistake for actual songs — albeit ones sung by dozens of sampled vocalists who have never met — and is a prime example of what we used to call experimental music, but now just call social media. It’s your own inescapable subjectivity made catchy as we witness the entrenched political beliefs of left and right cleanly switching sides in under one generation. It’s the first Negativland album to come with a lyric sheet, and a reminder that we need more than just one memory before we can safely tell anyone else that this is not normal.
Is this a concept album?
• The first of two interconnected double albums, True False musically tackles concerns that will be familiar to any surviving fans of the band: our nervous systems, our realities, and the evolving forms of media that inevitably insert themselves between the two. A series of seemingly random topics are slowly woven together: shootings, bees, the right’s rules for radicals, climate control, dogs pretending to be children, the oil we eat, and the right of every American to believe whatever they want to believe — your brain’s ear lets nothing remain entirely random. It’s not the content, it’s the edit that shows us what we all know to be true, and it’s the things that one is most tempted to enjoy as harmless entertainment that often turn out to be living animals. Splicing together Occupy mic checks with US militia rallies, FOX news hosts with ecoterrorists, and your own sanity with the home viewing habits of Negativland’s lead vocalist, the Weatherman, when you put the word ‘True’ next to the word ‘False’, a broader reality reveals itself.
Albums:
• Negativland (1980)
• Points (1981)
• A Big 10~8 Place (1983)
• Escape from Noise (1987)
• Helter Stupid (1989)
• Free (1993)
• Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 (1995)
• Dispepsi (1997)
• These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit (2001)
• Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak (2002)
• No Business (2005)
• Thigmotactic (2008)
• It’s All in Your Head (2014)
• True False (2019)
• The World Will Decide (Nov. 13, 2020)
Website: https://www.negativland.com/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDXxnDtO_I