For the release of his new album, Karol “Garbageface” Orzechowski has decided to challenge the usual methodology and manner in which music is released. His way flies in the face of how music has been marketed ever since Napster turned the music business back into a singles-driven enterprise again. While everyone else is digitally distributing singles into the world and hoping they’ll entice those who find them to purchase hardcopy albums, Orzechowski has released a 7” teaser which features four tracks, along with information on how one can purchase an online download for the full-length release.
It seems a little backward at first, but it begins to make sense after a while. The 7” is a cost-saving measure in that it gets a fairly inexpensive-but-instantly-collectible document on physical store shelves, and it’s great bait to get listeners thinking about an easy-to-procure full-length. Looking at it that way, the release of the N0 FUTUR(E) 7” is a stroke of (some may still maintain ‘unlikely’) genius.
… And, as singles are supposed to do, N0 FUTUR(E) sets up its intended “succinct sale” tactic (“get in, make an impression, get out and let the inspiration sink in among listeners”) very, very well. Listeners will be shocked to attention the moment the heavy beat which propels “Like A Cracked Crystal Ball” hits them like an aluminum Louisville Slugger. There is precisely nothing subtle, sly or slippery about this beat; it’s just flat-out solid and violent. Here, beneath a thin veil of crackling dust, that beat rattles senses as it warms the song up, but it is quickly dwarfed by Garbageface and his confrontational persona as he begins pulling the pieces together.
Sources as disparate as the Offspring (Orzechowski sort of plays off of “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” for grins), Halloween movies (hello “Camp Crystal Lake”), meth chemists, dogs playing poker, crack rocks and blowtorches assemble in a precarious manner which quickly drowns listeners in a pool of sensory deprivation, and only breaks when it’s all punctuated by “the period at the end of this life sentence.” It’s unbelievable, it’s staggering, it’s overpowering – and it’s only the first verse.
From there, Garbageface still has another two minutes to go a couple of rounds with listeners and both he and D-sisive do just that by rapid firing more potent imagery at them and never letting the beat lapse even once. As a result, listeners just get continually battered and pummelled by this release right out of the gate and will relent to it because it feels like the only thing which might be possible to do if one wants to continue breathing. The unrelenting power of it is just unbelievable.
There is no moment to rest or recuperate after “Like A Cracked Crystal Ball” collapses to an end – the A-side just keeps coming as emcees change (D-Sisive makes way for Noah23), but the overall approach remains the same for “Like A Delorean on Fire.” There, Garbageface and Noah23 delve deeply into some poetic nihilism (check “The past is a dream and the future’s a lie,” for starters). But, rather than devolving into sequential acts of self-loathing, the duo feeds off of each other’s vitriol and somehow manage to trump “Like A Cracked Crystal Ball” by turning out a HARDER beat, DARKER imagery and lyrical flow.
Ultimately they just leave listeners exhausted after they’ve brutalized them for three minutes. Somehow, after the track ends, listeners will be surprised that just six minutes of listening have left them so exhausted, but they’ll still feel compelled to flip this disc and see where the single goes next – although the A-side assault does make them think twice.
… And “Like A Bottomless Pit” – the first track on the B-side – does not back down from the A- at all. Here, while ever-so-slightly-smoother-of-rhythm than the A-side, “Like A Bottomless Pit” gets a few shades darker lyrically as lines like “I make a mountain of molehills – majestic” and a series of vintage ‘Game Over’ video game sound effects line up to make listeners sneer defiantly. While not feeling quite as poignant as the tracks on the A-side, “Bottomless Pit” compensates by just being blindly angry as Garbageface nearly spits every syllable and the sanded smooth beat beneath him will have listeners’ mouths begin to water in order to do the same sympathetically.
By the end of “Like A Bottomless Pit,” listeners may feel drained but they’ll be anxious for more and the final run-out “Dream Sequencer” – with its stiff, sort of self-congratulatory dialogue – isn’t substantial enough to assuage appetites. It is just enough to buy time for listeners who have already been won to get online and download the rest of the album. In effect, the B-side simply feels like an extended run-out for the A-.
So, as light-in-numbers as this running might be on actual songs (promises four, delivers three), there’s no denying that the A-side and half the B- of N0 FUTUR(E) shows a tremendous amount of promise. And the great bit is that, after they’re hooked by the hors d’oeuvres here, listeners have the option of downloading the full serving. In many ways, that’s a pretty great act of instant gratification. Maybe Garbageface will come to be known as trailblazers for this one.
(100 Eyes)
Artist:
www.facebook.com/thegarbageface
Album:
The N0 FUTUR(E) 7” is out now. Buy it here, on Bandcamp: garbageface.bandcamp.com/album/n-futur-e.
