The Age Of Ephemerality

This was a later discovery for me. BRUIT ≤ released The Age Of Ephemerality back in April, but I only listened for the first time in November. I start with this context because I think it explains how voraciously I have devoured this album, over and over, since that initial listen. This is because many of the conditions that contribute to the cyber punkesque, tech dystopian vision of this album have only accelerated throughout this year. In these times of great forces, disturbing visions of the future, and just general uncertainty, everything feels in a constant spiral of inexorable acceleration: whether in the context of AI, where acceleration is the explicit aim, regardless of consequence, or int he context of consistently crumbling political norms, largely in the pursuit of increasingly extreme wealth consolidation. In the face of these myriad horrors, The Age Of Ephemerality is a richly cathartic project for the moment.

One aspect that I find especially compelling is the bizarre combination of beauty and revulsion that embodies The Age Of Ephemerality. These twin pillars manifest in separate, but equally prominent capacities. Namely, the music within this album is sonically gorgeous, but thematically nauseating. It is one that frequently captivates me in an intoxicating weave of dazzingly elaborate, layered instrumentation; it is also one that will abruptly, cruelly, wrench me out of the comfort of being mesmerized. It accomplishes these jarring about-faces lyrically, and though they are sparingly used, the infrequency of these interruptions only heightens their debilitating nature. There is no greater example of this pattern than the song “Data.”

“Data” is an 8 minute long track that I see as a perfect microcosm of the record. It is sonically rapturous, full of soaring builds and wondrous flourishes of colorful sound. It is also deeply disturbing, rife with snippets from what sounds like the platonic ideal of a tech startup presentation to potential investors. This mostly consists of jargon, talk of number of page views, users, databases, etc.

The barrage is a pretty upsettingly clear distillation of humanity to profitable datapoints, which is a difficult thing to square with the song as a whole simultaneously sounding incredible. The very juxtaposition of the two feels like the most poignant part of the entire track: our world is increasingly one of greater and greater efforts to dazzle us as out attention becomes stretched ever thin. This is true even as it also becomes more and more our greatest asset to be commodified and won through increasingly invasive advertising.

As I listen to “Data,” I feel as if the song (successfully) vies for my attention by evoking a magnificent sense of wonder, but that very sense is repeatedly, and abruptly, shattered as the nefarious intentions underneath are laid bare. At one point, the song cuts to a clip of Marc Zuckerberg saying “I think is really going to give you a feeling for what this future could be like” before explodes into this stunning explosion of sound.

I am but another user, offering more page views to be recorded in a database. My utility is solely confined to that which I offer the shareholders. This is a deeply cynical view of commerce, but it is accurate to the vision carefully sculpted by BRUIT ≤: one they perfectly, disturbingly, depict, and with very few words. When they do use words, the message is very, very clear, as clearly stated during the eerie end of the incredible closing track “The Intoxication Of Power,” utilizing lines appropriately borrowed from 1984:

There will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. This is the direction that the world is going in at the present time. There will be the intoxication of power. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. The moral, is a simple one: don’t let it happen. It depends on you.

Favorite Song: Data