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Joy Through Work
Nov. 4th, 2009 07:36 pmI should probably come right out and admit that I love dystopias, and I love musical narratives. (An adolesence spent reading Orwell and Atwood and watching Rocky Horror and Hedwig will do that to a girl.)
It will probably come as a surprise to no-one at all, then, when I say that I love dystopian concept albums. David Bowie's Diamond Dogs and Gary Numan's Replicas hold places in my heart from which they may never be ousted.
Regular readers may also know that I am, at times, prone to hyperbole (ironically, this sentence is in fact understatement). So I really had to look closely at my thought processes when I wanted to log on here today and tell you all that Borderville's Joy Through Work is the best dystopian concept album that I have ever heard. On reflection, I want to modify that statement; Borderville's Joy Through Work is the only dystopian concept album which feels immediate to me. Replicas and Diamond Dogs are quite clearly set in some future: cyberpunk and post-apocalypse, respectively. But Joy Through Work is a dystopian concept album where the dystopia is the capitalist megamachine that I feel crunching us all into its cogs more and more each day. It's real, and it's now, and it's everything that distresses and depresses me about the world I see; yet it offers hope.
I cannot stress enough how much what follows is half review, half creative response to this hope. Of course, I want to excite you all to purchase their album (either today from their website with a beautiful gatefold sleeve, or when it receives its multi-platform digital launch on 5 December), but this is more than that; I want to spread the beauty that they have built out of degradation, and the hope that they have built out of despair.
( Review )
It will probably come as a surprise to no-one at all, then, when I say that I love dystopian concept albums. David Bowie's Diamond Dogs and Gary Numan's Replicas hold places in my heart from which they may never be ousted.
Regular readers may also know that I am, at times, prone to hyperbole (ironically, this sentence is in fact understatement). So I really had to look closely at my thought processes when I wanted to log on here today and tell you all that Borderville's Joy Through Work is the best dystopian concept album that I have ever heard. On reflection, I want to modify that statement; Borderville's Joy Through Work is the only dystopian concept album which feels immediate to me. Replicas and Diamond Dogs are quite clearly set in some future: cyberpunk and post-apocalypse, respectively. But Joy Through Work is a dystopian concept album where the dystopia is the capitalist megamachine that I feel crunching us all into its cogs more and more each day. It's real, and it's now, and it's everything that distresses and depresses me about the world I see; yet it offers hope.
I cannot stress enough how much what follows is half review, half creative response to this hope. Of course, I want to excite you all to purchase their album (either today from their website with a beautiful gatefold sleeve, or when it receives its multi-platform digital launch on 5 December), but this is more than that; I want to spread the beauty that they have built out of degradation, and the hope that they have built out of despair.
( Review )
