“Who are you when you’re not online?” That’s the philosophical question of the era, a query meant to reveal your true self, the parts that you keep hidden and your deepest intentions. It’s a vital question for sure and one that most modern people, netizens, nearly every single one of them, would prefer to avoid.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. We are all the result of the influence that others have on us. And, in this day and age, nothing happens without it being reported and approved or ignored, online. It used to be that no event could be proven without at least two witnesses. Nowadays, nothing exists unless two or more people have liked a social media post about it.
Korfian’s “Digital Brutalism” is the contemporary pop-rock album designed as a future report on the state of the world circa 2025. There are no tears to be shed or laughter to detense the situation. These are just cold facts about a world that’s trapped itself inside of its creation.
Of course, most of us are both aware of these facts and stuck from doing anything. On this seven-song collection, Korfian sounds both like someone who has adopted all that internet culture has to offer and who has transformed himself into a kind of genie of the online world, a spectre through everyone’s digital dreams.
Take the album opener, “Apathy Star,” as an example. The stark drum beat and cold synths, which bring to mind David Bowie’s final album, provide the backing for an ode about scrolling through tragedies and finding no way to relate to them. Korfian redesigned himself as an emotionless Ziggy Stardust, a superstar alien to himself and to others like him.
The title track, “Digital Brutalism,” mixes detachment with concern once more. Here, an instrumental beat that would be the right fit in many Western European dance clubs is blended with softly sung words about algorithms replacing human connection.
The “Digital Brutalism” release functions like a concept album. The programmed beats and detuned vocal samples of “348-844” are married to lyrics about numbing the pain of existence with digital stimulants, while the industrial-pop of “Father.exe” is a song about finding comfort in the dehumanising experience of becoming a test subject for the Big Tech companies.
Is this really Orwell’s nightmare manifested into reality, and did we all voluntarily upload our information to make it come true? And where does it all leave us? On “Your System,” Korfian sings to the Giant Computer in the sky as a lover would, as the sailor would to the Siren. Maybe that’s all that’s left.
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