Let’s finish the week with the NotNotice track “Culture of consumption” off his upcoming Constructor LP due out August 20th on the Russian label Faktura. The label hails from the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains and seeks to promote local electronic producers in a search to explore the region’s musical identity. NotNotice is the producer Ivan Somov from the city of Serov, and he reports that he wrote the tracks on Constructor in the summer of 2018.
Describing the process, he explains: “It can be said that in it I am only a board, some kind of transmitting component, between in and out…” Acting as a kind of sonic medium, then, the producer’s process often finds him conducting the simplest of interactions as he opens doors to new sound dimensions. On the track “Culture of consumption,” NotNotice blends “the noise of a crowd of young people” with a “synthetic sound and a small part of drums.” Striving for the “simple” through this process, he says: “All complexity is inside again.”
Below, you can listen to the NotNotice cut “Culture of consumption” via Bandcamp. Also, NotNotice has written extensively about the inspiration behind the track. A must-read as it opens all kinds of intriguing doors into the intentions behind Somov’s project. With that said, there are a few places where the artist’s poetic text might have lost something in translation. Attempts by the label for clarification have gone unanswered, with Faktura postulating: “Maybe he went to the mountains again, and didn’t say how long!” Can’t blame the guy, can you?
Hello
I think there is something to say about the track
“Culture of consumption”
Our neurons are looking for the easiest way to transmit a signal. In music, a similar formula often works. Simplification. A person strives for this, for example, through automation. But inside, everything is very complicated. At the exit, we strive for the simple. Therefore, in terms of sound, I did not load the listener with unnecessary elements. The noise of a crowd of young people blended, like an alcoholic cocktail in their hands, with a synthetic sound and a small part of drums. All complexity is inside again. Excessive monotony, like a new spoon with food. This symbolizes the suppression of hunger. There are different ways to progress in the world. In the Strugatsky’s book, I met the idea that communism in Russia in the twentieth century was a kind of “experiment”. Sounds like the truth. What if it was aimed at keeping people in deprivation, to instill in them a sense of need for technological progress. Such an exchange. But in many difficult thinging make mistakes. And it seems that some kind of “failure” has occurred …
In modern realities, I see people drowning in credit debt. It is like a religion where the name of God is “Brand”. The human essence is dissolved in a test tube, where several milliliters of Gucci and a couple of drops of BMW are poured. Mix, but do not shake. Around me is this temple, in which the bishop is the chief marketer. And it works. Because it is relevant for my country. The illusion of choice. And this is not hate. Rather, a dream, because it is easier for a well-fed person to fall asleep. The problem is probably that a thing becomes more important than a person. Gobble up everything indiscriminately. Or maybe it’s natural selection? I don’t know if Darwin managed to fill the stomach like we did. But we crave things like food, and in this we are no different from street tramp. And when we fill our stomach, we will surely have nausea. The track is just about that. Everyone has their own path to themselves. Way in to purification. This helps someone get rid of the “comparison.” And someone to get rid of his ego. Hunger, instead of progressing, made us devouring. And stock up on surplus. It`s naturally. Our can philosophize a lot on this topic.
Let’s go back to the failure. The 90s – the time when I was born, is sometimes called “perestroika”. But only for me it was not a restructuring. It was rather destruction. Later, when there were ruins, there was nothing to restore. It’s like killing a mammoth driven into a cave. Only we blew up the cave to kill him. And now we unearthed it and filled our bellies. To progress, we need to starve again. The main thing is not to drown others in our vomiting. We are building a new cave from stones, as a constructor. But attention to detail is important here. Otherwise, repeat Babylon.
A cover is just a link to details. There are many parts, like parts in Lego. And they can easily be connected not according to the rules. But here the creativity begins, as if the neuron ceases to choose an easy previously known path for signal transmission. The method of creating such art is not a secret – this is a slicing method. The slicing method has been popularized by people like William Burroughs and Brian Gysin. Later, the cutting method, in addition to literature and fine art, began to be used in music. Each cut piece represents a sample. Good simplification. Perhaps this is progress. Each item cut cannot be associated with another. But with glue, visual landscapes are sometimes interesting. It is close to us because it is used everywhere. Thinking has become a clip. Information is capacious. A wonderful new world!
NotNotice, 2019
