Consider this the final Album of Aftermath81. I have explored the facets of electronic music, and I have discovered that at its core is a denial of the concept of an instrument, of orchestration, and of cause-and-effect. It’s an ecosystem of lies, where the producers hide the nature of the sounds they produce behind layers of effects, unnatural tones, and, above all, deliberately obscured composition. I’ve come to understand that these are features of electronic music, not mere oddities. Indeed, what I intend to create with music is fundamentally opposed to what you producers are all about. I intend to create music to be remembered, music to be contemplated, not for its lyrics, nor for its “rises” and “drops” and ABAC formulas, but for the order, tones, intervals, chords, and rhythm thereof. I want my melodies to be clear and memorable, but not so over-simplified as to be annoying.
These are all things Pop and Electronic music have foregone. They’ve abandoned the concept of the instrument; they’ve abandoned the concept of the melody. All that remains is a shrinking rhythm and a dying formula, and to compensate, “producers” turn to samples of better people, in better times when people still remembered what music could achieve. They take these samples and cut them up, passing the “original mix” as their own, forgetting the logic and reasoning which holds the samples together. And these producers sing over the mutilated corpses, proclaiming that feelings are better than facts, that if someone wishes it to be, it will be. These non-composers will talk day and night about the theory they’ve abandoned: the theory of music, of harmony, of intervals. Then they’ll flaunt their expensive equipment in which they design their “unique” sounds that take the form of nothing in particular.
But now I know the truth. The reason I’m dissatisfied with my own songs is precisely because the sounds which I have limited myself to are inherently flawed, created by people that want to destroy the absolute, by people who prefer to imagine reality as spontaneous and un-knowable. For that reason, I’ll abandon electronic music conceptually; it’s a step away from reality, not one in pursuit of it.
In this album, perhaps you can notice the growth from the abstract to the concrete. I certainly can see the progress I’ve made. Maybe someone listening can understand the struggle, and ultimately, the victory! This is it, my final album
-Matthew
