Classic Album Review : 猫 シ Corp. - News at 11 (2016)
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Vaporwave is a musical genre you either get or don’t. It isn’t meant to be conventionally enjoyed, but rather to evoke a sense of haunted nostalgia for things that don’t exist anymore. Artists themselves get a kick out of calling it a dead genre. In my opinion, no record evokes the vaporwave feeling better than 猫 シ Corp.’s News at 11. I mean, it’s barely a record. It’s a collage of sounds and memories from a not to distant past here the world was quite different.
It is soothing and unnerving at the same time.
I might be mistaken, but I don’t believe there is any original music on News at 11. It’s a jagged collage of old clips from daytime television broadcasts. The theme of the record is pre-9/11 America, so there are subtle allusions to it (mentions of a Tuesday, end of summer, etc.) but it never veers from its sense of haunting calmness. In a sense, it’s a very hollow experience that you have to fill with your own memories from that era. It comes to life inside your mind.
Now, there isn’t much substance to daytime television soundtracks. It is designed to fill dead air while traffic or weather conditions are being aired. When it’s done right, you’re not supposed to even notice it. There’s a lot of sax, synth and oddly bass. For some reason, music that isn’t meant to be heard is full of hardcore bass popping. It’s an even and repetitive experience meant to soothe the ear while your mind is busy reading information on screen.
Not everyone will understand the magic of News at 11. A younger audience might find it pretty fucking boring. Jornt Elzinga relies on your memories of an era where television was omnipresent in our lives to make it work. I used to watch plenty of late night television myself and the music of News at 11 evokes many feelings of blissful solitude. Back then, I watched television for the same purpose than this music was created: to fill the silence in my life.
News at 11 isn’t all forgotten elevator music, though. There are pieces of broadcasts like on Downtown, where you can hear Al Roker talking to tourists on the set of Good Morning America or Tuesday Television, where Charles Gibson interviews a weirdo who’s obsessed with Howard Hughes. I believe these are meant to evoke a romanticized memory of pre-9/11 America and express that we’ve lost a certain peace of mind along with the two towers on that fateful day.
The experience of News at 11 will not be the same for everyone. It is, not unlike The Caretaker’s Everywhere At the End of Time, a trip through memory more than it is actual music. Marred by the ghost of 9/11, it never quite acknowledges it and rather lets the shadow of the towers color the entire experience. Few things make me nostalgic in life, but News at 11 never fails to evoke the Zen of an empty apartment when the television is on.
A fantastic piece of audio fuckery.
8.6/10
