Datality: Full Noise Tape
March 29 23
STREAM
What is this, and why?
This is my debut album, a noise album, an artwork created nearly entirely on the clock. Every track was made in a different way, but generally, I live-recorded a digital sampler while layering and manipulating field recordings of the semiconductor manufacturing plant in my old job. I mastered it using FL Studio.
Several things led to the creation of this album. Combining my dissatisfaction at the promise of anti-racism and political consciousness within my local punk scene, my hatred of my job, an interest in outsider art, media studies, performance art, and my simple urge toward creation, I bore Datality.
Principally, I read the book Japanoise! and became interested in media circulation, modern casette culture, and of course, noise music. Like punk, hip-hop, and folk music, noise is a genre that invites you not to be a mere consumer, but a collaborator progressing, defining, and shaping the genre and culture. Around this time, I was also reading several authors related to propaganda studies, media analysis, and generally raising my consciousness and misery about my job.
So I branched out with several loose goals in mind. I had always had a goal to perform live music but was always intensely nervous to perform anything "serious" (not to say that Datality isn't serious, but that the stakes of noise music somehow felt lower. If you come to noise concert, you should know what to expect.) What would a Noise show look like? Should you just stand? Mosh? In this way, this album was made with a notion of performance art in mind. The album Datality is complete, but the project is not, until it is live-performed.
The project will also remain incomplete until at least a few cassettes are collecting dust in some Japanese record stores. Around the time I made this project, I was interested in media circulation and marketing, and one of the goals of this project was to simply make a product, any product, just to see if it was marketable. It was also made to scratch an itch I had regarding the graphic design elements of an album rollout.
The most commonly asked question about Datality is: "Do you actually like this?"
Yes, there's a reason I made the damned thing. I think even if I was intentionally trying to be edgy I couldn't commit to a bit long enough to create an entire album. It is always really interesting to see the reactions people have to the album, and how their perception of me changes after they've found out I've made it.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.