Sickboy has produced a near vomit inducing barrage of sound that simultaneously makes you laugh at the ridiculous contradiction of the sound sources and the context in which they are placed, and prompts serious thought into what kind of a world we are bringing our children into.
[Free digital release] Like a winged avenger, garbed in the rotting, mouldering discarded debris from the conveyor belt of synthesised sugar coated TV pop reality which is continuously force fed to the masses, Sickboy charges forward fearlessly to meet the enemy head on. Holding aloft a magic mirror to the world, the hideous face of the oppressive sickly-sweet corporate ‘tween’ soma pill machine (read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley if you haven’t already, you won’t regret it) is revealed, ugly and distorted. Oppression, subjugation, depression and exploitation are all mixed into the Disney-Hollywood sunshine. Miley Cyrus lives in a trailer park, has three kids from three different men, an alcoholic father who abuses her when he’s drunk, and is desperately trapped in an endless cycle of destitution, unemployment, abuse, broken relationships and prostitution. Middle class high school singing basketball players spew forth pounding distorted drums at breakneck speed, Malibu sunkist pouting nymphets repeat earnestly the notion that you can achieve your dream, just as long as you believe in yourself and then proceed to hammer the inside of your skull with a sledgehammer fashioned from noise which has taken the form of solid matter.
This free release by Sickboy Milkplus on Cock Rock Disco is a monument to creative freedom. Showing flagrant disregard for copyright laws, Tweencore is something that we all need in our collective lives. Fast and furious breakcore with the potential to make your ears bleed and your brain melt. Using samples from various ‘tween’ movies (High School Musical etc.) and the factory produced pop that is aimed at the same market (Jonas Brothers for example), Sickboy has produced a near vomit inducing barrage of sound that simultaneously makes you laugh at the ridiculous contradiction of the sound sources and the context in which they are placed, and prompts serious thought into what kind of a world we are bringing our children into.
To my mind, this is following a great tradition or art reflecting the society from which it comes in a truthful and human way. Isn’t that what the Futurists did in the early twentieth century? Futurism was a reflection of the new post industrial revolution world, noise and smoke was everywhere, speed and modernism were vogue, and the resulting art and music depicted this, making the very early precursor to industrial music and other types of noise based forms, including perhaps breakcore. The serialism of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern can be seen as a reaction to the strict and unbending regimes that were sculpting Europe at the time. Punk again did something similar, a reaction to the world at the time. This release follows on in this fine tradition, resisting against the constrictions of more and more ridiculous copyright laws – which is a whole other conversation, but if you’re interested check out John Oswalds essay called Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative – it is a reaction to the world around it.
This music is not for the feint hearted and can be less then an easy listen, but the concept is spot on, and you should grab it just so you can tell your kids you were a part of it. It’s free, true to itself just as the ‘tween’ films it parodies are constantly extolling. So sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that Sickboy is out there fighting on your behalf against the tide of manufactured TV land faux reality mass distraction devices set up to spoon feed the masses electronic sedation. As he says himself;
“This is my throwback to the internet, the media and the oppressive entertainment machine. Everything is borrowed and I’m giving it back.“
All rise…..
Tweencore is out now on Cock Rock Disco and available as a free digital release.
