By: Tony Price
An assemblage of miscellaneous links to articles, essays, videos, playlists, records and more, cultivated and presented on a semi-regular basis.
Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite? By Thomas Pynchon (1984)
Pynchon ruminating on our relationship to the technological instruments of our own demise. Rather than being an irrational fear and hatred for science and technology, Pynchon argues that Luddism represents a revolt against the growing obsolescence of the human. Written nearly 40 years ago, this topic is now more pressing than ever. It’s pure Pynchon: dense, prescient and sweeping.
Gang Stalking: Real Life Harassment or Textbook Paranoia? by Joe Pierre M.D. (2020)
A decent overview of one of the more interesting cultural manifestations of our contemporary techno-psychosis. Gang Stalking is a phenomeon that has been around for nearly two decades, but has grown in both popularity and significance in recent years. Targeted Individuals live in a state of constant paranoid fear that they are being followed, watched, and harassed by unknown forces that may or may not be facets of the elite ruling class, the government, military-industrial powers or tech corporations. Pierre positions the phenomenon somewhere between a shared delusion and a conspiracy theory.
Record Labels Cannot Stop Winning In 2021 by David Turner
If you have an interest in the state of the music industry, or the intersection of art, tech and commerce, you should sign up for David Turner’s “Penny Fractions” newsletter. In this recent letter, Turner references a report commissioned by the Canadian government to look into the economics of music streaming. The report found that in Canada, 70% of streaming revenue went to record labels, 17% to performers, and less than 15% to publishers and songwriters. The report also found that BMG, Sony, Warner and Universal account for 75% of the market in share in Canada. For an industry with a history of extraordinarily exploitative practices, the ongoing consolidation of power and wealth in the music industry is disheartening, but fully expected.
Westside Gunn - Hitler Wears Hermes 8 (2021)
Donda and Certified Lover Boy are two of the worst efforts by two of our supposedly leading stars. Both of them are bloated, boring, and bloviating examples of the cultural stalemate that we’ve been shrugging our shoulders at for the last decade. Released just around the same time as both of these atrocities,, Westside Gunn’s (supposedly) final installment in the Hitler Wears Hermes series was also unleashed. As per usual, Gunn delivers the goods. Broken up over two “sides”, the album contains a fleet of guests, both familiar (Benny, Conway, Keisha, Boldy, Mach-Hommy) and big name (Wayne, 2 Chainz, Jay Electronica). Beats and production by Nicholas Craven, Daringer, Madlib, Jay Versace, Camouflage Monk et al. solidify Gunn as a purveyor of the finest moods in contemporary hip hop. Over the last decade we’ve seen the rising influence of the the Neo-New York sound as crafted and refined by the likes of Roc Marciano, KA, and Griselda, to the point where they are being name checked and photographed with the biggest names in music. Contemporaneous with this rise has been the utter decline in ambition, innovation and provocation once expected from the likes of Aubrey and Mr. West. Maybe this is the long-awaited changing of the guard.