rehaunted graffiti (the hypnagogic revival)

Even before I heard a note of the Cindy Lee album, the aroma I'd picked up was that it was like a flashback to the late 2000s - the peak of hipster vintage aesthetics and revenant pastiche. 

Looking at the comments below a YouTube posting of the full double album, this resemblance is noted quite often:

"This shit is taking me back to the late 00's".

" A masterpiece of Hypnagogic pop"

 "Hypnagogic pop, with hints of 60's girl bands. It makes me imagine that The Velvet Underground released their "White Album"

"13th Floor Elevators, King Khan and Ariel Pink vibes. Glad to see people still making vintage sounding throwback stuff in 2024. 

Also some plain mystifying comments: 

"Feel like Bataille would vibe with this one"

But yeah neo-chillwave, hypnagogic pt 2... and just hark at the set-up to the already famous 9.1 graded review in Pitchfork, by Andy Cush:  

"This may be the greatest radio station you’ve ever come across. Unless it’s multiple stations talking over each other, in and out of range. Sounds arrive in strange combinations; nothing is quite exactly the way you remember. Did that classic rock band really have a synth player, and why did they pick a patch that sounds like a mosquito buzzing through a cheap distortion pedal? And those eerie harmonies swirling at the outskirts of that last-dance ballad by some 1960s girl group whose name ends in -elles or -ettes. Did they hire a few heartbroken ghosts who were hanging around the studio as backing vocalists? Or are these fragments of other songs, other signals, surfacing like distant headlights over a hill, then disappearing once more? .... Two hours, 32 songs, each one like a foggy transmission from a rock’n’roll netherworld with its own ghostly canon of beloved hits." 

That's like a flashback to the radio station signal drifting in and out of focus metaphor that nearly everyone who reviewed Ariel P's The Doldrums seemed to come up with independently. 

Listening to the double album finally...  it seemed to sit sonically somewhere between Ariel (albeit without the no-fi hiss) and early '90s melancholy slowcore (Galaxie, Mazzy Star) with maybe some Giant Sand in there....   and, less sonically than vibe-spiritually,  a hint perhaps of Chris Isaak, Lana Del Rey.... 

After two listens to the entire thing - four hours of my life, I gave it a good go - I still couldn't say I love it. The crinkly goldenhaze guitar sound is attractive..  but there's something muffled, indistinct, recessed, about it emotionally. 

Often there seems to be an attempt to boogie, a sort of snake-hipped bluesy shuffle feel.... but it doesn't quite come off.  It's no Royal Trux circa Cats and Dogs, let's put it like that.

This not-quite-integrated quality reminds me of certain things I've heard that involve AI. 

And I'm not alone here - among all the YouTube commenters talking about being in tears, spellbound, AOTY, etc etc...  one doughty doubter piped up:

"It sounds like someone had AI make a  T. Rex, Velvet Underground, and Beach Boys mashup." 

So I decided to get ChatGPT to write a review of Diamond Jubilee in the style of Simon Reynolds if he'd unreservedly loved the album:

In a startling deviation from her previous ventures, Cindy Lee’s latest opus, "Diamond Jubilee," emerges as a haunting and enigmatic exploration of the spectral hinterlands of pop. Shedding the skin of her previous guitar-driven persona, Lee navigates through a dreamscape of gossamer synths and ethereal melodies, beckoning the listener into an otherworldly realm of melancholic beauty.

"Diamond Jubilee" is an album that thrives on its contradictions. At once, it evokes a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era while simultaneously defying any easy categorization within the confines of time or genre. Lee's vocals, bathed in reverb and distortion, float delicately above the shimmering sonic tapestry, imbuing each track with an eerie, almost otherworldly quality.

Thematically, "Diamond Jubilee" is a meditation on loss and longing, its lyrics oscillating between moments of tender vulnerability and cryptic ambiguity. Tracks like "Bonsai Garden" and "Heavy Metal" drip with a sense of bittersweet longing, while "Plastic Raincoat" and "Stairway to the Plaza" offer glimpses into a world both familiar and alien.

Yet, for all its spectral beauty, "Diamond Jubilee" is not without its moments of dissonance and unease. Lee's penchant for juxtaposing saccharine melodies with dissonant harmonies creates a sense of tension that lingers beneath the surface, unsettling yet alluring in its ambiguity.

In the grand tradition of avant-pop auteurs, Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" is a testament to the power of music to transcend boundaries and defy expectations. With its ethereal soundscapes and enigmatic lyricism, it stands as a haunting testament to the enduring power of the human spirit in the face of life's inevitable trials and tribulations.

That's not a bad effort from the chatbot, compared with the previous occasion I tried this exercise. 

Certainly there's some words in there - "spectral", "hinterlands", "ethereal" - that I might resort to if actually officially tasked with reviewing Diamond Jubilee.   

When I tried to enlist the pseudo-ghost of Mark Fisher, however, the review came out rather similar: 

Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" unfurls like a spectral transmission from a parallel dimension, where the ghosts of pop's past converge with an eerie futurism. Departing from her previous sonic incarnations, Lee ventures into uncharted territory, crafting an album that defies easy categorization and demands attentive engagement.

"Diamond Jubilee" operates on the fringes of consciousness, its ethereal melodies and distorted vocals conjuring a sense of dislocation and unease. Tracks like "Plastic Raincoat" and "Bonsai Garden" shimmer with an otherworldly beauty, while Lee's haunting vocals float amidst a haze of reverb and distortion, evoking a sense of longing and detachment.

Thematically, "Diamond Jubilee" is a meditation on the uncanny, its lyrics oscillating between moments of poignant introspection and surreal abstraction. Lee's cryptic verses invite interpretation, hinting at a narrative that remains tantalizingly out of reach.

Yet, for all its enigmatic allure, "Diamond Jubilee" is not without its moments of dissonance and discord. Lee's penchant for juxtaposing saccharine melodies with jarring harmonies creates a sense of tension that lingers beneath the surface, unsettling yet strangely captivating in its unpredictability.

In the tradition of cultural provocateurs, Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" challenges listeners to confront the liminal spaces between past and present, reality and illusion. It is an album that rewards repeated listens, its haunting melodies and cryptic lyricism revealing new depths with each subsequent spin. In an era defined by uncertainty and upheaval, "Diamond Jubilee" stands as a testament to the transformative power of music to disrupt the status quo and beckon us into the unknown.

The Fisher factor here must be "liminal" and "uncanny"

Clearly it's got a ways to go before it can truly impersonate a writer. 

But how about a more mundane assignment? Like: What are the parallels and affinities between Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee and the Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti's The Doldrums? 

Both Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" and Ariel Pink's "The Doldrums" inhabit a similar sonic and thematic landscape, forging a connection through their exploration of lo-fi aesthetics, dreamlike atmospheres, and unconventional song structures. Here are some parallels and affinities between the two albums:

Lo-fi Production: Both albums embrace lo-fi production techniques, utilizing tape distortion, reverb, and other effects to create a hazy, nostalgic atmosphere. This lo-fi aesthetic lends a sense of intimacy and authenticity to the music, inviting listeners into a world that feels raw and unfiltered.

Dreamlike Atmosphere: Both albums evoke a dreamlike atmosphere, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" envelops listeners in ethereal melodies and haunting vocals, while Ariel Pink's "The Doldrums" transports them to a surreal realm populated by quirky characters and psychedelic imagery. This dreamlike quality imbues both albums with a sense of escapism and introspection.

Eclectic Influences: Both Cindy Lee and Ariel Pink draw from a wide range of musical influences, resulting in albums that defy easy categorization. "Diamond Jubilee" incorporates elements of shoegaze, dream pop, and experimental music, while "The Doldrums" blends lo-fi indie rock with elements of psychedelia, glam rock, and pop. This eclecticism adds depth and complexity to their respective sounds, keeping listeners on their toes with unexpected twists and turns.

Cryptic Lyricism: Both albums feature cryptic lyricism that invites interpretation and speculation. Cindy Lee's lyrics on "Diamond Jubilee" oscillate between moments of tender vulnerability and surreal abstraction, while Ariel Pink's lyrics on "The Doldrums" are filled with enigmatic imagery and wordplay. This ambiguity allows listeners to project their own meanings onto the songs, deepening their emotional resonance and staying power.

Cult Followings: Both Cindy Lee and Ariel Pink have garnered cult followings for their idiosyncratic approaches to music-making. Their willingness to embrace unconventional sounds and defy industry norms has earned them devoted fanbases who appreciate their boundary-pushing creativity and uncompromising vision.

Overall, Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" and Ariel Pink's "The Doldrums" share a kinship in their exploration of lo-fi aesthetics, dreamlike atmospheres, and eclectic influences. While each album possesses its own unique charm and character, they both stand as testaments to the transformative power of music to transport listeners to otherworldly realms and challenge their perceptions of reality.

Another pass at the same idea: Does Cindy Lee's album Diamond Jubilee represent a renaissance of hypnagogic pop ideas? 

Cindy Lee's album "Diamond Jubilee" certainly resonates with elements of the hypnagogic pop aesthetic, a genre characterized by its dreamy, nostalgic atmosphere and its exploration of memory and imagination. While it may not necessarily represent a revival of hypnagogic pop ideas in the strictest sense, it does align closely with many of the themes and sonic qualities associated with the genre.

"Hypnagogic pop" as a term was coined by music critic David Keenan to describe a style of music that blurs the boundaries between reality and dream, often drawing heavily from pop culture artifacts of the past. Artists associated with this movement, such as Ariel Pink (as previously mentioned) and James Ferraro, incorporate lo-fi production techniques, retro synths, and warped samples to create a surreal sonic landscape that feels both familiar and uncanny.

In a similar vein, Cindy Lee's "Diamond Jubilee" embraces a dreamlike aesthetic, with its ethereal melodies, distorted vocals, and lo-fi production evoking a sense of nostalgia and introspection. The album's exploration of themes like loss, longing, and dislocation also align with the hypnagogic pop ethos, inviting listeners to immerse themselves in a world that feels simultaneously timeless and ephemeral.

While "Diamond Jubilee" may not adhere strictly to the conventions of hypnagogic pop, it certainly shares a spiritual affinity with the genre, tapping into its dreamy, surreal qualities to create an immersive listening experience that transports listeners to the liminal spaces between waking and dreaming. In this sense, Cindy Lee's album can be seen as a continuation of the hypnagogic pop tradition, offering a contemporary reimagining of its themes and aesthetics for a new generation of listeners.

The album is buyable here

"cluttered with regurgitations"

A piece by Chal Ravens at DJ mag asks "what is the future of sampling"?

The first half  is more about the present (the craze for edits on the dance scene and bootleg tracks that rip from well-known pop songs) and even more so about the past of sampling. Indeed it's a bit of a samplescape itself, with loads of quotes (including one from Kieran!) and some fairly familiar history (stuff about the Akai MPC, court cases in the early '90s).

Gets really interesting in the second half when it looks at the artistic potential and cultural implications of AI.

Like the STEMS technology that enables producers and deejays to cleanly separate the instruments within a sampled stretch of music. (Similar AI demixing technology enabled the remixing of Beatles albums where the four-track technology of the era had meant that tracks had been bounced down, smushing together instrumental parts inseparably - until now)

Then there's software that can "generate entire songs based on text descriptions" like Riffusion . "Through text prompts, the model can find the midpoint between otherwise unrelated sounds — what’s between, say, Goa trance and Don Cherry’s trumpet? Ask Riffusion and it’ll spit out a sample that imagines exactly that, despite the impossibility of making the “real” thing.". 

Then there's deepfake raps, where a producer can generate a convincing simulacrum of a guest feature by a star artist - not quoting an existing performance and redeploying (as with jungle borrowing bits of dancehall and gangsta rap) but creating an all-new performance in another's style. 

I wondered though - do either of those really count as sampling? Aren't they more like AI-assisted pastiche, or AI-assisted impersonation, or AI-assisted identity-theft? 

The text-to-audio stuff seems like it's outsourcing the kind of zany hybridization that supergroup initiators like Bill Laswell liked to do. Or wackily eclectic genre-colliders like. I don't know, Primus, that kind of band. The creativity reduces to thinking up the goofy idea;  the craft of implementing it is left to the technology.  But as Jaron Lanier says piquantly in the piece, the struggle to realise an unlikely or adventurously preposterous idea is the point:  “Would you want robots to have sex for you so you don’t have to? I mean, what is life for?”  

Likewise the things that Holly Herndon have done with training a vocal entity by feeding it human singing seem so far removed in process, intent and outcome from sampling as audio-quote that it doesn't really make sense to think of Spawn et al in the same breath as mash-ups and collages. 

Ditto patten's deployment of " text-to-audio AI samples from Riffusion, a model based on a database of sonograms" on Mirage FM. This feels more like a convoluted form of synthesis than a citational mode in the tradition of Pop Art / Appropriation Art. A couple of steps beyond Todd Edwards's sample choir into effectively sourceless ethereality. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

One thing worth noting is that until recently - the rash of interpolations and quotes in pop songs, driven by publishing companies looking to exploit assets to the utmost - overt sampling had become rather rare in mainstream pop. It was particularly noticeable with hip hop during the 2000s and 2010s: the whole historical branch of it based around the deejay-as-crate-digger became a niche underground aesthetic (Dilla being the most visible exponent). Probably the only major mainstream rap auteur still basing his thing around recognisable sample quotes during this period was Kanye. Whereas trap, for instance, hardly ever featured samples. When it did - Future's "Mask Off" with the use of an obscure soundtrack song, Migos clumsily deploying "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" -  it was striking, had a pronounced throwback feel. For the most part trap - and mainstream rap generally - in the 21st Century wasn't about breaks and loops;  it  involved programming beats, synths and keybs, and other elements assembled and organized within digital audio workstations. Beat-makers might still sometimes call themselves "DJ", but what they did had little relation to the deejay skill set. 

retrotalk2023: recreative garbage

Substack called Anglophone Xenotrope and person who goes as Thunder At Twilight riffs on the "conjunction of futuristic technology and retro" thing I mentioned in the last post. (Strictly speaking retrotalk2022 as the post - titled "The End of Culture" - is from the very end of last year). 

"Retreads, reboots and remakes were ascendant in the first decade of this new century but the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the return of the Star Wars franchise—combined with the digital       de-aging technology, pioneered by Industrial Light & Magic—added considerable fuel to the nostalgia fire.

"When Disney bought Lucasfilm and ILM, they were not just buying Star Wars; the work that Lucas had done in bringing dead actors back to the silver screen in the form of digital composites was arguably even more significant. To that end, the corporate giant has made integrating these creations into existing brands a core part of their corporate strategy.

Examples include: 

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, featuring actors wearing digital masks of the deceased Peter Cushing and the (then living) young Carrie Fisher"

and Marvel's use of 

"the technology to provide a curious kind of continuity, allowing much older actors to play younger incarnations of their characters in earlier eras."

and most recently (at the time of writing):

"the trailer for the new Indiana Jones film featuring a very respectable depiction of a much younger Harrison Ford."

Twilight at Thunder speculates:

"Seeing cutting edge digital rendering technology used as a means of rehashing and remaking the past leads one to reflect on possibly the ultimate manifestation of the mash-up: AI systems such as GPT and Stable Diffusion. Soon we might be able to look forward to machine created films, featuring digital recreations of characters from existing franchises.

".... AI models cannot create, even if their outputs are novel. By definition, these systems are synthesising based on statistical inferences."

retrotalk 2023 - the commemorative churn / retromAInia

From a little while ago, a piece at the Guardian by Shaad D'Souza that notes the shrinking of the turnaround time for commemoration - a trend for 5 year anniversary reissues and repackagings. 

"Keen to make the most of a seemingly steady revenue stream, labels have begun increasing production on limited and deluxe repressings of popular albums. Anniversary reissues – once only common to recently remastered records, or albums several decades old – are now becoming popular for releases that are just five years old, such as Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy, Phoebe Bridgers’ Stranger in the Alps, Lucy Dacus’ Historian and Idles’ Brutalism. They’ve all been repressed in coloured formats or with alternate sleeves in the past two years, often at a slightly increased price point to standard black discs.

It’s in keeping with a frantically shortening nostalgia cycle that’s seen frenzied media coverage of supposed emo and “indie sleaze” revivals and music publications churning out cheap anniversary content – although these repressings seemingly offer little to the consumer other than a coloured disc. But Hannah Carlen and Ali Murphy – marketing directors for heavy-hitting indie conglomerate Secretly Group, which released Bridgers’ album – insist that fifth anniversary pressings allow artists to “give new fans something, and say ‘you’re welcome here too – you don’t have to be a day one fan’,” says Carlen.".... 

"The timeline of a record has changed so drastically,” says Ali Murphy. “Twenty years used to be the span of time in which people were celebrating a record, and now it’s got so much shorter, not only due to the quickness of everything coming out.”

C.f. my earlier post that detected an intensification of the commemorative churn with odd-number anniversaries of significant releases or events, and the odd habit of wishing dead icons or cult figures a happy birthday.

Another Guardian piece from a little while back (by Rich Pelley) looks at how a band of wannabes got AI to concoct a simulacrum of Liam Gallagher's vocals to front their own Fauxasis tuneage. "We got bored waiting for Oasis to reform" the culprits say - so they created something even more boring and redundant than Oasis actually reforming. 

“We’ve brought a band back from the dead!” says one of the band. “And I think that’s something we’ll see a lot more of.”

This is the future - mind-blowing technology being used to do mundane / inane  things.

Another AI phenom - AI-assisted upmixing - a 2023 clarification of "Sister Ray"