[HH3os] The Pluto Chips Store trio

(1st round match-up 15 of 27)

At time difficult to keep self-imposed schedules, especially since ultimately all this digital expressionism is futile. Like building sandcastles inside the ocean. Fuck it. (Epitaph that for me.)

Action Bronson/Party Supplies – Blue Chips

(released March 12, 2012; #32 on 2012 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

I ASSUMED ACTION BRONSON WAS AMAZING AND WOULD CRUSH THIS TRIO, considering I’d heavily rotated a number of these tracks through the ol’ J.J. Krupert machine the past few years. And yet listening to the Blue Chips bama beginning to end fleshed out those familiar tracks with a good number of uninspiring clunkers I must’ve abandoned early on in my/our playlist culture. I guess he was living out the Blue Chips metaphor, and I’d only remembered the clutch 3s Bronson hit, forgetting all the bricks he laid, not to mention the missed foul shots (there’s a lot of missed foul shots on here). And yet, one can never be mad at Action Bronson. He’s often (rightfully) compared to Ghostface, suggesting he big that style, and he’s certainly borrowed that flow and reappropriated it according to his own little-dicked Balkan nature (no diss, all that makes me love Action Bronson to be honest), but I also left revisiting this feeling he was way more Biz Markie than I’d ever acknowledged – just a big goofy fucker who will never speak an ill or serious word towards anybody, and it’s kinda hard to hate that, ever. We need far more big goofy fuckers on this planet, because they – contrary to logic – lighten things up a ton. (And "9-24-11" remains the go-to Action Bronson track, fuiud.) THREE STARS (***)!

Future – Pluto

(released April 17, 2012; #37 on 2012 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

I ASSUMED FUTURE WOULD BE TRASH AND I WOULD EASILY DISMISS IT AS THAT CRAP SWIRL FOG MUSIC PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FOOLED INTO LIKING, but then I ended up actually loving Pluto, so much so that I feel bad for never having tried it before, and for hating on him for no reason (other than pretending to drink lean, which is kinda chumpy). In both drugs and drug music, there’s this fine line between clouds and fog. Clouds you can still see through, which you can test out yourself by going up into the mountains where the clouds all are. As you walk through them, it is misty and you are clouded, but visibility is still normal for the most part. But shit is definitely cloudy. On the other end of this tangent is foggy, which is thick and obscures any real visibility whatsoever. In the world of drugs – and I am applying this mostly to that wonderful spectrum of opiates and opioids that we’ve all dabbled in or rubbled ourselves underneath (sadly) – the whole point is to get that clouded feeling of mountaintop mysticism like old T’ang era hermit poet. However, it is far too easy to crossover into fogged state (aka addicted), and then you’re fucking lost bro. You can find your way out, but it’s way more complicated and convoluted a labyrinth back to normal than it is when just simply clouded. That line is exactly like how Hunter S. Thompson describes the edge in beginning of Hell’s Angels, in that the only way you really know where that line is, is by going over it. This is all in relation to actual drug (ab)use though, not drug music.

With drug music, it’s just music, which is a commodity, not an actual experience, though good commodity pretends (successfully oftentimes) that it is actually art, and thus becomes an experience. But c’mon man, listening to a fucking CD – any fucking CD (which are no longer CDs) – is not an actual experience like smoking opium, ever. Anyone who says that is a fucking asshole trying to pass off their commodity as art. So the most you can get from music is the clouded version, as it feels more authentic and enjoyable. But when it crosses over into that fogged, you can’t really cross into fogged territory with a fucking commodity, so fogged drug music is just stupid posturing meant to give the impression of “whoa bro I’m totally enveloped in this strange fog of music” but it’s all a charade, falseness manufactured for chump ass kids to consume. And as I said before, I lumped Future into that realm, along with the entire genre that exists of wailing sing-rap over pharmaceutically-inspired (pharm-to-table) beats that feel robotic and empty of any actual emotion. I was wrong though. (Let me clarify that the potential for me having been trigger-tricked by the Khujo intro is there, as Khujo always been a fave of mine.) This tape is not fogged out at all, but very clearly just cloudheaded resistance against normalcy. I can support that, and will support it, if by “support” you include me listening to the illegally downloaded without payment of any sort robot file collection that contains this musical commodity more often in the future, no pun intended. SEVEN STARS (*******)!

Death Grips – The Money Store

(released April 24, 2012; #9 on 2012 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

I ASSUMED DEATH GRIPS WOULD BE ARTSY NOISE THAT I KIND OF ENJOYED BUT ALSO KIND OF GOT ANNOYED WITH. This turned out to be entirely true. I totally philosophically am on-board with the basic concept of noise music being a sort of humane industrial revolt. I’ve always assumed it’s against the soullessness of industry and capital, and expresses this in a way that sounds like smashing against the gears. So I support this, philosophically at least. But in reality, after about ten minutes of it, I’d rather be in the woods listening to crows. Death Grips had the added question mark of being majorly pushed in music industry world noise art rap, which sort of goes against the whole point of revolt against the machines, if you are then incorporated even partially into the machines. Thus, after brief enjoyment of Death Grips, I suffer horrible existential conflict which is only solved by masturbating beneath the shelter of the giant poplars (like always). TWO STARS (**)!

THE WINNER: This project has mostly been pointless, like all good internet projects, so I’m thankful that finally my preconceptions were not only challenged, but smashed, like free SXSW mixtape CDs in the cobblestone streets of my heart. The Future advances.