Anomalous - OHMnivalent

October 31, 2011

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“For such an advanced civilization as ours to be without images that are adequate to it is as serious a defect as being without memory”. — Werner Herzog

From the late 1800s to the early 1980s, we listened to recorded music on vinyl and cassette, and we talked on landline telephones, in person, or by physical mail sent through the post office. In the 1980s and early ’90s, things began to change as the CD and the Internet came into existence. Electronic communication slowly grew on message boards and email, and the first primitive cell and car phones took root in popular culture. In the mid 90s, mp3s appeared. Internet access became cheaper and so the use of email, ICQ and AIM grew. Napster spread MP3s like seeds blown by the wind. Emusic and Russian sites started selling MP3s. We streamed from Pandora and Rhapsody. The iPod came out. Cellphones became smaller, cheaper. Then came MySpace, BlackBerries and other smartphones. ITunes. Blogspots. Skype. LinkedIn. Facebook… MOG… Zune… Twitter… Tumblr… iPhoneAndroidBandcampSpotifyCloudStorageRdioiPadgoogle+SINGULARITY.

OHMnivalent is the musical image of our Advanced Civilization.

Modern society offers little respite from the onslaught of information, new technology, new ideas- and that’s exactly what the OHMnivalent listening experience is like. The torrent of riffs and notes is explosive and unpredictable in the same way that a meme could ignite at any second or a Facebook change can nearly start an e-riot. The gravity blasts are nearly relentless, slowing down just enough to occasionally become blastbeats. It’s like absorbing the world through the news media: we view a 30-second news clip, read a blurb of an article (all we have time for), and then sprint to the next microthought.

OHMnivalent is quite melodic, but the sheer speed of it all renders the melody into a formless blur. When the cell phone buzzes for emails, texts, tweets, calendar notices, alarms, phone calls . . . the importance of any single piece of data is reduced. The information detonation obscures the meaning of any one bit of data. Every solitary second demands our maximum attention. Blink, and a whole song passes by. The experience is exhausting, and it’s not for everybody. Listen to OHMnivalent with the right mindset, and it is a potent piece of catharsis for modern life. Listen to OHMnivalent in the wrong mindset, and it’s totally draining. In all fairness, Anomalous at least do us the favor of offering moments of instrumental calm.

I already struggle to keep pace with technology. I hope I can deal with the changes in the next 10 years, let alone the next 20. We grow and adapt and suck down the gigabytes of new data, or we suffer the living death of obsolescence. We don’t go the way of the dinosaurs. We go the way of DOS, dial-up, and disc-based storage.

I also struggle to keep pace with the violent cascade of notes and ideas that Anomalous use to build songs. I hope that with each listen, I can unzip a bit more data for comprehension, torrent a few more megs of understanding, add another line to the OMHnivalent article in my mental wiki.

The idea that the rate of technological progress is increasing is a working theory, by the way. There is evidence to support the theory, and if the theory comes true, it does not end well for the human brain. Until the Technological Singularity occurs, where do we as people find our precious respite from all this progress?

Where we always have.

— Richard Street-Jammer

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HEAR OHMNIVALENT

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgbXJ8F1Iu4&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL88B85AA8EB9D1B4B

Anomalous – “Premateria (A Fire Birth)”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3pAxxkejRU

Anomalous – “OHMnivalent”

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BUY OHMNIVALENT