Album Review: Johnnynottoscale/Vuja De

This is not my musical strength, as I listen to electronic music less than conventional instrumentation, however there are some things that I’d like to discuss. Back in the early days of electronic music it was enough to create new sounds, to test the tools and instruments because they were still not very well understood. Therefore a lot of the music was basic from a structural standpoint, and the sound creation was part of the artistry. Nowadays almost every sound has been generated, and the artistry is in crafting an interesting song with the sounds by finding unique ways to combine them.

The artists that I feel do this well are usually of two types. One would be someone like Boards of Canada who combined sounds people did not expect to be together to create unusual soundscapes, usually also incorporating interesting musical theory elements with their time signatures, tempo changes, and melodies. The other type of artists are those like the Beta Band and The Knife that are looking to take electronic sounds and infuse them into other musical genres to establish an interesting musical experience or to accent a point. In the case of The Knife it seems their electronic elements are used to highlight the sense of polished violence that runs throughout our current culture and reflects upon us as a species, one where hate and ignorance can be masked in graceful, perfectly composed bodies, but is still underneath nothing but repulsive.

In Vuja De it doesn’t seem as though there is an attempt to make a statement about humanity or a larger social issue, and their isn’t really an attempt to redefine musical forms, or to even stretch the established norms. What is presented here is a very well done electronic album, that uses many well established ideas and elements very effectively to paint a well-known audio landscape. I enjoyed moments, but they were moments I felt I had already known. This is actually a good thing, in that people like to hear something familiar in music. It’s been researched that when we listen to pop music we receive large amounts of dopamine to our brains when we can predict what is coming next. This is why listening to music that is playing out the way we expect it to is pleasing to us.

Johnnynottoscale has crafted an electronic album that utilizes a very expansive sound that I would almost classify as post trip hop, with ambient tones that swell and contract precisely as they should. All of it is well executed, although it lacks a spark to set it apart from other artists leaving me with a sense akin to a gemstone, brilliant and sparkling, but ultimately soulless.

You can find Johnnynottoscale’s full album here.

65/100