athing - MEGAMIX(POSER CUT) ALBUM REVIEW!!!!!!!!!
starting 2023 off with some good (well, its bad, actually) music!!!!
So, full disclosure: I know athing personally. I know her very well, and I have known her for a long time. We are very close (maybe even too close) and we have witnessed each other grow and change over the years. As a result, I have insight into her music and how it “works” in ways that other listeners do not. “But Theresa!” you might say, “surely this presents a conflict of interest as your opinions will be biased? Why review it at all?” Well, I just think the music is worth it, and deserves to be shared and talked about. Since she feels as tho she cannot promote her music without corrupting the essential substance of what it is, it falls on me as a fan/collaborator1 to spread the word and evangelize her music.
So, on October 31st, 2023, I received a truly horrifying email from my dear friend. The subject line simply read “Are you afraid of AI?” and the body of the message contained strings of bizarre text and cryptic pictures. It was honestly hard to tell what the message was about. There was a picture of an eye, a USB stick, and a vague set of instructions to click a link. So I did. Once there, I was greeted by yet another set of warning messages, only to be immediately confronted with an overwhelming display of flashing white and black text which read “CLUB TRAX!!!” in an 8-bit font. I saw that my cursor had turned into the pointer icon, so I clicked and was immediately taken to an elaborate page donned in ascii art.
I won't spoil too much of the website, cuz it's beautiful and deserves to be experienced without having your expectations manipulated unfairly. It's disorienting, to say the least. I keep trying to tell her that she would get more followers if she had more “normal” promotion, but she completely shuts down any attempt to reason with her. After an hour or so of clicking around aimlessly and failing to solve a riddle several times, I was awarded with a repository of tracks: the “CLUB TRAX” the website had alluded to earlier. It was reminiscent of a DJs USB stick- heaps of poorly tagged mp3s and WAVs (along with other formats) that must be a nightmare to sort thru when you are about to hit the decks at the local renegade. At the top of this quasi-file structure, in all caps, was the “MEGAMIX.”
So, with all that context, what athing released this past bandcamp Friday (in December) was the “MEGAMIX(POSER CUT)” [sic].2 I'm not sure what exactly makes this a “POSER” cut (it doesn't appear to be any different from what's on the website) and I'm not entirely sure why she expects people to buy something that they could just get for free. Maybe the thinking is that people who can't figure out the website can just buy the tracks instead. Are those people “posers”? Even if you couldn't figure out the website, surely you know someone in the scene who did? Can't you just get the tracks from them? Why are you asking me? Anyway, for $4.20 you can download around 17 minutes of music, properly tagged and split into individual files, ready to be dropped during your next set. How convenient! I'm starting to wonder if she is finally taking my advice on making her music more accessible.
The EP itself is a radical departure from her past work. Instead of intelligent sound design and layered melodies, we are greeted with disgusting kicks and searing leads. It almost mimics the distortion you hear when music is turned up too loud at a party and starts clipping the speakers. God only knows what this would sound like when played back at that volume. All the tracks have a good crunch. There is plenty of synthetic and metallic delay-based stuff as well, but it takes a backseat to the onslaught of dilapidated bass and drums that appear on pretty much every track. The first track, “ULTIM8 FITEME CHALLANGE” [sic] is a great example of this. All in all, the 5 tracks cover gabber, ghetto-haus, acid, and breakbeats (with both the Amen and Think break making appearances). It really does run the gamut of “shitty club music.”
I suppose the EP is a little bit funny coming from a producer of her caliber. Normally, the music you hear at your local renegade just sounds like this because it was made by a 15 year old who doesn't know how to mix, been fed to another 15 year old who can't set levels, and played back over speakers that aren't meant to be that loud. What does it mean to design music that sounds this bad from scratch? I suppose it's impressive, more than anything. Anyone can make awful music without trying to, but to make awful music on purpose? Only the most expert musicians are capable of that. The EP does feel shockingly deliberate despite its dirty aesthetics. There are no goofy DJ tags or meme-tier samples crowding the mix.3 Just the raw frequencies. It's kind of desolate. It really fits the aesthetic of a super sketchy drug den, where the crustiest of transgirls in thigh-high fishnets can be seen making out and sharing needles. It's definitely a vibe.
All in all, I'm just really proud of my friend for getting both a website and another EP out before the year ended. She really is super talented, and having watched her suffer for as long as she has, it feels so good to finally put her in the spotlight. No matter how much she might resist taking compliments and adoration, I think she deserves far more praise than she gets. Thru her struggles with housing, BPD, and poverty, I've seen her slave away at making some of the most incredible music, only to have her bury it under a labyrinth of hyperlinks and steganography. In a way, her putting herself out there like this, in a more or less transparent and straightforward way, signals a huge shift in her attitude. I'm super excited to see where this goes.
I love you, bestie!!
Pros: hard as f! So sick gnarly club music
Cons: sounds like ass (but it's cool tho)
In the sex Playlist: maybe? Like if it was sex in a meth lab?
You may not have been able to tell, but I do quite a bit of vocal work for her. We have an agreement to not credit me (cuz it makes things more mysterious) but im blowing the lid off it!!!!! Plus idk its not like she is gonna get more famous then me or something LOL not at the rate she is going xD
Yes, that is my face on the cover!!!!
Okay well there is some really good TTS on track 4, but even this is very deliberately placed.