The World Will Decide

Album review

The World Will Decide is the second of two interconnected full-lengths by veteran culture jammers Negativland, following 2019's stellar True False. That album focused on the media's effect on our mental health and our perception of reality, and this one keeps those themes in mind while examining security and the various technologies created to supposedly make our lives easier. Similar to other Negativland recordings, the album is an intricate collage of samples and original music, including sound bytes gathered throughout the group's multi-decade history, repeated and re-spliced to become both lyrical hooks and audio memes. The backing instrumentation melds knotty avant-rock with glitchy IDM; guest musicians this time around include frequent collaborators such as Steve Fisk, Steev Hise, and Thomas Dimuzio, as well as guitarist Ava Mendoza, oboist Kyle Bruckmann, and both members of Matmos.
On "Before I Ask," longtime group member and home-recording enthusiast David Wills (aka the Weatherman) gleefully chirps about his lifelong practice of outfitting his house with microphones and capturing every sound, without permission from anyone else. Then he gets into a heated yet ultimately futile argument with various phone apps who seem to be deliberately avoiding or misunderstanding his questions. Other tracks remark that we have all been boiled down to content for the social media vortex and data for advertisers, who are able to predict our questions before we ask them, and ship our purchases before they're ordered. An overriding sense of fear is expressed throughout the album's midsection, from the nightmarish scenario of the brief interlude "I Didn't Know I Was Dead" and the oddly celebratory embrace of "Failure" to the paranoid hallucinations of "Attractive Target." All the while, human-voiced computers try to assure us that everything is alright, as on "Don't Don't Get Freaked Out." "Incomprehensible Solution" is a study of artificial speech and the algorithmic composition of unspeakably beautiful music. The concluding title track fully explores the recurring theme of eternal life through technology. Like many Negativland albums, The World Will Decide addresses heavy subjects in a humorous and intellectually stimulating way, functioning both as entertaining art and brilliant social commentary.

© Paul Simpson /TiVo