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The Electronique Void

by Adrian Younge

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    This, too, is a story about control. It’s a manual, maybe half Rosetta Stone, half bird guide. It was made the way they made electronic music in the good old days, all analog everything, right after synthesizers shrunk to a manageable size and you didn’t have to trek down to a university to use one anymore. Hard-earned. Tastes different. Our parents’ electronic. And its subject is staying together, that thing we thought was their province. It’s about trying to fix what hurts. It’s about knowing better. Black Noise is men talking to men about women; Lemonade is a woman talking to women about men, and they both orbit around a failure we take for granted like the sun: loving you is complicated. It’s a skill; we forgot.

    Adrian Younge calls The Electronique Void an academic album, by which he means it is both instructional and informational. There’s a problem at the heart of it, a woman who’s been told that she’s loved, but she doesn’t recognize that, can’t feel it, may have heard it all before, may be worrying about the wrong things. Jack Waterson, long a guitarist in Younge’s band, plays the role of narrator, sounding professorial and rather superior as he lays out for the woman where she’s erred. That vocoder you hear is Adrian, talking to her on a subterranean level, the way an artist must. There’s a strong sense of rules here, a prescription and a presumption that there is an agreed upon way to do it, and there is also a wrong way, or at least a way that won’t work. And the fact is, as didactic as that sounds, it might be the truth. Maybe everybody who’s alone can be cured. The discourse on the album is the kind of thing that happens when you go blonde and then you can’t keep ‘em off you. These truths are cold and hard, and our hero begrudges the well-meaning advice being rained down upon her as any independent woman would. 

    The science of love, its formulas and if-then constraints, causal relationships and observable properties, is best taught experientially, but learning it hurts so, so bad. Music, especially electronic music, reliant as it is on abstraction and unrepentant as it is about hijacking your physiological responses to tempo and rhythm and dynamics, is a way to get there without going through it. Electronic music as practiced and developed by pioneers like Dick Hyman and Raymond Scott and Wendy Carlos is precise and intentional. In making his first electronic album, Younge took his cues from them, reminding a contemporary audience what a synthesizer, deep in its heart, really could be. 
      
    The lady of The Electronique Void, only ever seen through a man’s eyes, who’s being told what to do by him, sounds trapped by her history and by her position, her ancestors’ trauma echoing through her lineage and booming out of her as a phobia, distrust, misapprehension, rational response to a fucked up situation. Waterson’s text here seems to say that if his character could go back in time, catch her before the damage was done, she would be able to love. And that’s reasonable. Don’t get hooked. Don’t do wifey shit for a fuck boy. Don’t let it go to your head, no. It’s also possible he has no idea what he’s talking about. The lessons for men in The Electronique Void are unspoken but plain as day.

    This music is an urgent tutorial. Adrian Younge looks at us and sees the frontline of a crisis, something we only have time to triage right now. This isn’t romantic and it isn’t about settling down. This is the fight of our lives: how to love. 

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Electronique Void via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $24.99 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    This, too, is a story about control. It’s a manual, maybe half Rosetta Stone, half bird guide. It was made the way they made electronic music in the good old days, all analog everything, right after synthesizers shrunk to a manageable size and you didn’t have to trek down to a university to use one anymore. Hard-earned. Tastes different. Our parents’ electronic. And its subject is staying together, that thing we thought was their province. It’s about trying to fix what hurts. It’s about knowing better. Black Noise is men talking to men about women; Lemonade is a woman talking to women about men, and they both orbit around a failure we take for granted like the sun: loving you is complicated. It’s a skill; we forgot.

    Adrian Younge calls The Electronique Void an academic album, by which he means it is both instructional and informational. There’s a problem at the heart of it, a woman who’s been told that she’s loved, but she doesn’t recognize that, can’t feel it, may have heard it all before, may be worrying about the wrong things. Jack Waterson, long a guitarist in Younge’s band, plays the role of narrator, sounding professorial and rather superior as he lays out for the woman where she’s erred. That vocoder you hear is Adrian, talking to her on a subterranean level, the way an artist must. There’s a strong sense of rules here, a prescription and a presumption that there is an agreed upon way to do it, and there is also a wrong way, or at least a way that won’t work. And the fact is, as didactic as that sounds, it might be the truth. Maybe everybody who’s alone can be cured. The discourse on the album is the kind of thing that happens when you go blonde and then you can’t keep ‘em off you. These truths are cold and hard, and our hero begrudges the well-meaning advice being rained down upon her as any independent woman would. 

    The science of love, its formulas and if-then constraints, causal relationships and observable properties, is best taught experientially, but learning it hurts so, so bad. Music, especially electronic music, reliant as it is on abstraction and unrepentant as it is about hijacking your physiological responses to tempo and rhythm and dynamics, is a way to get there without going through it. Electronic music as practiced and developed by pioneers like Dick Hyman and Raymond Scott and Wendy Carlos is precise and intentional. In making his first electronic album, Younge took his cues from them, reminding a contemporary audience what a synthesizer, deep in its heart, really could be. 
      
    The lady of The Electronique Void, only ever seen through a man’s eyes, who’s being told what to do by him, sounds trapped by her history and by her position, her ancestors’ trauma echoing through her lineage and booming out of her as a phobia, distrust, misapprehension, rational response to a fucked up situation. Waterson’s text here seems to say that if his character could go back in time, catch her before the damage was done, she would be able to love. And that’s reasonable. Don’t get hooked. Don’t do wifey shit for a fuck boy. Don’t let it go to your head, no. It’s also possible he has no idea what he’s talking about. The lessons for men in The Electronique Void are unspoken but plain as day.

    This music is an urgent tutorial. Adrian Younge looks at us and sees the frontline of a crisis, something we only have time to triage right now. This isn’t romantic and it isn’t about settling down. This is the fight of our lives: how to love. 

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Electronique Void via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $14.99 USD or more 

     

1.
2.
The Night 02:37
3.
Fly Away 03:36
4.
Systems 02:46
5.
6.
7.
Linguistics 00:45
8.
Black Noise 02:15
9.
Patterns 05:15
10.

about

This, too, is a story about control. It’s a manual, maybe half Rosetta Stone, half bird guide. It was made the way they made electronic music in the good old days, all analog everything, right after synthesizers shrunk to a manageable size and you didn’t have to trek down to a university to use one anymore. Hard-earned. Tastes different. Our parents’ electronic. And its subject is staying together, that thing we thought was their province. It’s about trying to fix what hurts. It’s about knowing better. Black Noise is men talking to men about women; Lemonade is a woman talking to women about men, and they both orbit around a failure we take for granted like the sun: loving you is complicated. It’s a skill; we forgot.

Adrian Younge calls The Electronique Void an academic album, by which he means it is both instructional and informational. There’s a problem at the heart of it, a woman who’s been told that she’s loved, but she doesn’t recognize that, can’t feel it, may have heard it all before, may be worrying about the wrong things. Jack Waterson, long a guitarist in Younge’s band, plays the role of narrator, sounding professorial and rather superior as he lays out for the woman where she’s erred. That vocoder you hear is Adrian, talking to her on a subterranean level, the way an artist must. There’s a strong sense of rules here, a prescription and a presumption that there is an agreed upon way to do it, and there is also a wrong way, or at least a way that won’t work. And the fact is, as didactic as that sounds, it might be the truth. Maybe everybody who’s alone can be cured. The discourse on the album is the kind of thing that happens when you go blonde and then you can’t keep ‘em off you. These truths are cold and hard, and our hero begrudges the well-meaning advice being rained down upon her as any independent woman would. 

The science of love, its formulas and if-then constraints, causal relationships and observable properties, is best taught experientially, but learning it hurts so, so bad. Music, especially electronic music, reliant as it is on abstraction and unrepentant as it is about hijacking your physiological responses to tempo and rhythm and dynamics, is a way to get there without going through it. Electronic music as practiced and developed by pioneers like Dick Hyman and Raymond Scott and Wendy Carlos is precise and intentional. In making his first electronic album, Younge took his cues from them, reminding a contemporary audience what a synthesizer, deep in its heart, really could be. 
  
The lady of The Electronique Void, only ever seen through a man’s eyes, who’s being told what to do by him, sounds trapped by her history and by her position, her ancestors’ trauma echoing through her lineage and booming out of her as a phobia, distrust, misapprehension, rational response to a fucked up situation. Waterson’s text here seems to say that if his character could go back in time, catch her before the damage was done, she would be able to love. And that’s reasonable. Don’t get hooked. Don’t do wifey shit for a fuck boy. Don’t let it go to your head, no. It’s also possible he has no idea what he’s talking about. The lessons for men in The Electronique Void are unspoken but plain as day.

This music is an urgent tutorial. Adrian Younge looks at us and sees the frontline of a crisis, something we only have time to triage right now. This isn’t romantic and it isn’t about settling down. This is the fight of our lives: how to love. 

credits

released September 23, 2016

The Electronique Void: LL033

All music composed, produced and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs Studios, Los Angeles, CA. Discourse written and performed by Jack Waterson. Mastered by Dave Cooley for Elysian Masters. Executive Produced by Andrew Lojero. All songs published by Sony / ATV Allegro / Linear Labs Publishing (ASCAP). Artwork by HB District.

Black Noise (Interlude)
Discourse: Beware of the Black Noise. Too much may kill you, a little can keep you alive. Electricity, magnetism, you are attracted, pulled together. When the Black Noise hits, the polarity flips. Pushed apart, you heard a name and a spark flew down your spine. It’s never the volts, but always the amps. Electricity makes your heart beat. The synapse fire, the static in the air, St. Elmo’s fire. Tesla warned Edison, beware of the Black Noise.

The Night
Vocoder:
We’re drifting close again
I feel you moving in
The sun will leave
And when it does
Our skin will sweat again
Our darkness sparkles in the night
Our eyes see waves between the light
I feel the current as we move
Like oceans following the moon

Fly Away
Vocoder:
Come with me before they fly away
Because these feelings may not want to stay
We make love and we say pretty things about
The way we feel about each other when we know we are in doubt

Come with me before they fly away
Because these feelings may not want to stay
With you


Systems
Vocoder:
One little girl
Fell in love with a man
then I changed the system
To get to inside your little head

The Concept of Love
Discourse: Consider for a moment that you are part of the universe. You are bound to the rules that govern it. There is no one point, gravity. There is no destination, eternity. Love has no explanation, serenity. All outcomes, uncertainty. By applying the truths and disciplines of science, love will be examined as a concept, not linear, not finite.

Vocoder:
Don’t know what to say
Don’t know what to do
I’m falling in love with you
Don’t know where to hide
I’m here with you and I’m falling in love
Don’t know what to say
Don’t know what to do
I’m falling in love with you
We came together to share energy

Voltage Controlled Orgasms
Vocoder:
Stimulating electronic pulsing VCO
We are controlled


Linguistics
Discourse: Linguistics – The study of language, you met, created new wortds they were soft spoken and deliberate. Moving past voices and words, ancient and fullproof, 3 6 9 the secret to the universe. Boundless transmissions, circles of sounds.

Black Noise
Vocoder:
Why, when you’re close to me
Touching your body is a heavenly feel
And why is it supposed to be
That when I’m in your body
Your mind can’t be free

We should generate sound (repeat)

I love the way we’re supposed to be
I love the way our minds oscillate free
I love it when our touch generates sound
Remember we make Black Noise


Patterns
Discourse: Geometry – Patterns developed while dissecting a circle, the secret to the universe. A circle has 360 degrees, 3 + 6 + 0 = 9, divided in half, 180 degrees 1 + 8 + 0 = 9. The equation works until its ultimate conclusion. 3 6 9 is everything and nothing at the same time. Love does not flow in an unbroken line; it circles back, infinitely.

Vocoder:
Tokyo, London, France, Africa, LA, Dance
Find the beat that moves your heart
New York, Philly, France
Looking for romance
Find the beat that moves your heart

Suicidal Love
Discourse: Chemistry – The psychological and emotional interaction between two people. If you’ve mistaken passion for love, you wouldn’t be the first to see it that way. A message is sent from your brain to your heart, confusion, making it difficult to differentiate between love and passion, since they share the same reward, but not the same result.

Vocoder:
We danced in the shadows of sunlight
But now we see
You just can’t feel love

Going back in time
To tell my mind
To save your heart
Because she can’t feel love

Suicidal Love

Discourse (cont’d): Sit still for a moment as this record play through. Remember, be careful with your heart, it’s the only one you’re given. The compromises you make, the ones that you take, the boundaries that are set and the ones that you forget, often lead to disappoint. Keep the equations true. The math never lies, the words soft spoken, a beautiful language. Keep the universe under a watchful eye. Stars move in the night sky, in billions of orbits, in perfect order, as the angles that divide us bring us right back again, everything and nothing, exactly at the same time.

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Linear Labs Los Angeles, California

The brainchild of producer Adrian Younge, Linear Labs Records is a Los Angeles-based label born out of vinyl culture and the dizzying array of music released during the format’s peak years. “The label will focus on creating new progressive music with a cultivated compositional perspective and a higher quality sonic palette,” Younge attests.

More info at www.linearlabsmusic.com/about
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