The Black Dots of Death

In 2010, nearly everything you eat, the water you drink, the music you listen to, the art you enjoy...are almost exclusively produced on and/or processed by some form of computer. We even have to create special labels or make certain compromises to experience something that is not born of our technology.. The Black Dots of Death. Ever since we were children our imagination produces and replays like a broken record the scenes of uneasiness and distress, but for some reason we derive comfort in ignorance and fear only the horrors we are told. The reality is everything in the world you should be afraid of is restricted from your field of vision, to keep you numb and apathetic, lower than dirt. No matter who we are or what happens we are always second best to machines. It would seem that the dawn of the new apocalypse is less than a decade away, where our “children” are digitally conceived...and likewise killed on a virtual reality playground. Where everything we purchase and consume is no longer merely manufactured, but cloned. The only reason you are still alive is because a machine has decided to let you live. The only expectation in life is the profound uncertainty of death. In art how often do we refer to a painting that has been created in times of personal computers? Whose idea was it to put the “art” in artificial? How often do we hear a record that is purely performed by musicians not quantized standing alone in a room and digitally tuned soulless, dynamic range reduced to binary pulses on and off in a computer? Where the nuances are not subliminal product placements and political suggestions designed to hack your brain at the most primal level of the subconscious for maximum compliance. It is less technology assisted more digitally perfected, how long before we see the performing artist credited second to the computer, when the PC joins the union? The music is created less from emotion more formulaic equation; beats, chords, melody, lyric, print and repeat; like a neat collated stapled set at the end of a digital copier. The music is harmonically predictable, tempo methodically and wholly uninteresting for our palettes as it is merely a product pasteurized and refined for bland consumption, instant out of the package and ready to eat...no need to digest just empty calories. And where do the artists look when they find their product lacking the emotion and soul of their creativity? Technology. We need more accurate time pieces, the perfectly tuned digital hallelujah chorus at the click of a button, rack and virtual racks of the most crisp, clear, fat, vintage, three dimensional, warm, open technological buzzwords, to bring life to a performance that is quantized and tuned to death. Airbrush and mask every blemish, every mole, every hair, destroy anything that could possibly make our new botox shot silicone stuffed flesh bag look human. Where do the consumers turn when they frown at the sound of music lacking soul and any lingering sense of humanity at 140dbSPL throttled to the seat through sub woofers and tweeters like 360 degrees of megaphones clicking on, off, on off....binary? The Black Dots of Death. They turn to technology, more high definition, transformer balanced, tube-driven, gold-plated, 1 gigawatt of Dolby sound, streaming satellite iPod of digital consciousness to maximize the potential of each sine wave rushing at their ears. From each transducer erupts bland hysteria like clockwork propaganda in rock solid militant perfection , crystal clear digitally preserved; a performance only a computer could efficiently appreciate. If humans create art for machines then what do they in return create for us? Nothing but a perfect digital copy, nothing more, nothing less.. Discarded like lepers quarantined because of the disease raging rapidly of raw human emotion, The Black Dots of Death emerged frustrated and disgusted but mostly inspired to instigate change and proselytize with a new process to create true art as unique as it is human. From the post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout democratic republican robotic dictatorship terrarium emerges unapologetic truth in sound from conception, abandoning and questioning all existing commandments and structure, pouring new foundation and laying brick and mortar to create something entirely their own, not the offspring of a computer. The Black Dots of Death are brought together like collectors at a serial killer convention on the outskirts of town, only we are not benign enjoying uncomfortable small talk over coffee, we are festering and pulsing to the march of electronic sequences and test tones. The human voice infects and cultivates speaking in persistent reverse exorcism against the raw elements to prepare the mind for dark and dissonant guitar driven melodies, creating a landscape from which broken tones and uncontrollable sirens and electronic infernal devices may be groomed. You are held to Earth no longer by gravity but by the chains of bass and sub-bass frequencies. Only then does stick pound dents into membranes and metal to create a wall of sound like a thousand foot 360 degree tidal wave to your cranium, destroying everything you think you know about music and art. Born again.