Various Artists - 29 Speedway: UltraBody

Label: 29 Speedway - 29SC03
Format: LP, Black Vinyl
Country: USA
Released: Sept 10, 2024
Genre: Electronic
Style: Abstract, Ambient, Experimental

New York-based record label and artistic collective 29 Speedway present their first physical release in the form of a vinyl compilation featuring the music of Jake Muir, Pent & Dylan Kerr, Nexcyia & mu tate, James K, Flora Yin-Wong, Ex Wiish & Dorothy Carlos, Kamran Sadeghi, Tati au Miel, James Hoff, Eric Frye, qwqwqwqwa & sop.io, Muein, & Maxwell Sterling. 

The record investigates how the self, spirituality, and language are intertwined with the intervention of subjectivity by new technologies. With increasingly sophisticated tech, and the supposed ability to remake the world and ourselves, what differentiates our individual discretion from the will imposed upon us by software? Quoting Walter Chaw, “Decades of rampant, unregulated and ill-considered technological leaps have begun to evolve, to mutate, humans at a biological level”. This haphazard acceleration towards a techno-utopic transformation of humanity has faulted, and as William Gibson put it, is leading us to live in a “half assed singularity”. In this reality, artistic processes are influenced by excessive access to computational tools and assistance, but not utterly controlled.

This in-between state of dominion is explored on UltraBody. “Incoherences” samples the utterances of Dylan Kerr’s voice processed between Pent’s percolated glazes, muddying the gulf between vaporous ambient and reflexive sound design. The voice on James Hoff’s “A... ...Cha.... A... I feel l” was created by trying to get voice cloning technology to sing a gps data stream, the music an extrapolation from an earworm he got stuck in his head while shopping in Kyoto. On “Plogue Chain”, Eric Frye’s most speculative sci-fi observations spiral into a glazed pool of digital cacophony, while Kamran Sadeghi’s “Formula Fiction” is an experiment in (un)controlled generativity. Incorporating minimal pings from a 3D simulation scene based on gravitational interaction, cello bits evolve on “Assimilation”, a collaboration between Ex Wiish & Dorothy Carlos.

1. Jake Muir - Mirage
2. Pent & Dylan Kerr - Incoherences
3. Flora Yin-Wong - Oath
4. qwqwqwqwa - shadow (feat. sop.io)
5. EX WIISH & Dorothy Carlos - Assimilation
6. Nexcyia & mu tate - Sans Titre
7. Tati au Miel - House of Gold
8. Kamran Sadeghi - Formula Fiction
9. James Hoff - A... ...Cha.... A... I feel like a ghost Uh
10. Eric Frye - Plogue Chain
11. Maxwell Sterling - Xiahe Tears
12. Muein - Creep
13. James K - Sketch 4