WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 Have you ever wanted to just, you know, completely 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:06.559 erase your professional past? Oh, wow. Like fake 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:09.220 your own death kind of thing. Kind of. Like wipe 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:12.400 the whiteboard totally clean, walk away from 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:15.759 massive, well -documented success, and just become 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:18.500 a total beginner again. I mean, most of us wouldn't 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:21.780 dare. It's terrifying. Right, it is. But today, 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:23.739 we're tracing the digital footprints of someone 00:00:23.739 --> 00:00:26.559 who did exactly that. An artist who essentially 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:29.960 committed career suicide. on Instagram. And then 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:31.839 fled across the Atlantic. Yeah, and started selling 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:36.460 yoga mats instead of CDs. So welcome to today's 00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:40.140 deep dive. We are unpacking the bizarre, brilliant 00:00:40.140 --> 00:00:43.140 metamorphosis of the American experimental artist 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:45.399 Fred Wormsley. And we're doing this armed with 00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:48.820 a really comprehensive Wikipedia roadmap of his 00:00:48.820 --> 00:00:51.579 2016 album successor. Spelled with a dollar sign, 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:54.259 by the way. Which is a brilliant piece of irony 00:00:54.259 --> 00:00:56.479 right out of the gate. I mean, considering how 00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:58.439 aggressively he was trying to dismantle his own 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:01.340 commercial viability. Oh, exactly. So our mission 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:04.019 for this deep dive is to explore this radical 00:01:04.019 --> 00:01:06.640 artistic metamorphosis, we're looking at what 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:08.560 it actually takes to tear down the house you 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.959 live in just so you can build something entirely 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:13.219 unrecognizable on the foundation. Right. And 00:01:13.219 --> 00:01:15.680 what that teaches all of us about creative evolution 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:18.640 and really taking risks. So before we can understand 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:20.920 the album's successor, we kind of have to understand 00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:23.379 the very public death of his previous identity. 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:25.859 Because before he was making experimental noise 00:01:25.859 --> 00:01:28.780 music, Fred Wormsley was known to the world as 00:01:28.780 --> 00:01:31.540 Lee Bannon. Right. And Lee Bannon was not some, 00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:34.250 you know, underground guy trying to pay rent. 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:36.290 No, not at all. He was a highly sought after 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:38.790 producer. He was working with the hip hop collective 00:01:38.790 --> 00:01:42.049 pro era. He was a very known entity in jungle 00:01:42.049 --> 00:01:45.569 music, drum and bass, and EDM. I mean, he had 00:01:45.709 --> 00:01:48.329 absolute critical validation. Yeah. The source 00:01:48.329 --> 00:01:51.310 material notes his 2014 debut studio album under 00:01:51.310 --> 00:01:53.909 that moniker Alternate Endings was just a massive 00:01:53.909 --> 00:01:56.730 success. Rolling Stone ranked at number 15 on 00:01:56.730 --> 00:01:59.209 their list of the 20 best EDM, electronic and 00:01:59.209 --> 00:02:01.769 dance albums of 2014. He was catching the attention 00:02:01.769 --> 00:02:04.849 of heavy hitting labels, too. Warp Records, Sacred 00:02:04.849 --> 00:02:07.629 Bones. And Ninja Tune, who actually signed him. 00:02:07.790 --> 00:02:10.550 Right. So by every traditional metric of the 00:02:10.550 --> 00:02:12.530 music industry, he had won the game. He had made 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:16.360 it. But then we hit. May 26, 2015. The turning 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:19.300 point. Yeah. Warmsley goes on to his Instagram 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:22.520 page and posts a handwritten note. He announces 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:25.460 he is completely dropping the name Lee Bannon. 00:02:25.639 --> 00:02:28.020 Just out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. But he doesn't 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:30.259 even replace it with a new name right away. He 00:02:30.259 --> 00:02:33.039 changes his moniker to a symbol. Right. It was 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:35.960 the mathematical logical negation symbol followed 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:39.659 by a lowercase b. So literally not b, which translates 00:02:39.659 --> 00:02:43.520 to not Bannon. He is defining his new artistic 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:47.039 self entirely by what he is refusing to be. He's 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:49.379 kind of weaponizing his own absence. OK, let's 00:02:49.379 --> 00:02:51.560 unpack this because I read his rationale on this 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:53.300 note and it left me scratching my head a bit. 00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:55.520 He wrote that his upcoming release at the time 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:57.979 would be his final one as Lee Bannon because 00:02:57.979 --> 00:03:01.520 the name had, quote, reached its limits. Reach 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:04.419 its limits. He actually said, and this is a direct 00:03:04.419 --> 00:03:06.759 quote from the source. The future can no longer 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:08.939 exist in the same realm with music I created 00:03:08.939 --> 00:03:12.240 when I was 17, fickle and still developing. But, 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:15.860 like, let me play devil's advocate here. To a 00:03:15.860 --> 00:03:18.560 lot of people, throwing away a career that pays 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:21.120 the bills and has the backing of Ninja Tune just 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:24.639 because your older music feels fickle, That sounds 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:27.039 incredibly pretentious. Oh, absolutely. It sounds 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:29.400 like self -sabotage. Right. So how do we know 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:31.840 this wasn't just, you know, a quarter life crisis 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:34.740 masquerading as high art? It's like a tech giant 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:38.280 abruptly scrapping a highly profitable flagship 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.460 product just because the founder had a late night 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:43.400 philosophical epiphany. Well, what's fascinating 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:45.960 here is the underlying psychology of creative 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:48.590 limitation. and why this isn't just a crisis, 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:51.330 but it's actually a survival mechanism. A survival 00:03:51.330 --> 00:03:53.590 mechanism? Yeah. Shedding the Lee Bannon name 00:03:53.590 --> 00:03:56.810 wasn't a PR stunt. When you achieve massive success 00:03:56.810 --> 00:03:59.110 at a young age, and he specifically points out 00:03:59.110 --> 00:04:01.009 he was 17 when he made some of that foundational 00:04:01.009 --> 00:04:03.349 music. Yeah. The market expects you to freeze 00:04:03.349 --> 00:04:05.569 in time. Oh, sure. They want what they know. 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:08.030 Exactly. The audience, the critics, the labels, 00:04:08.150 --> 00:04:09.930 they all want you to act as a vending machine, 00:04:10.069 --> 00:04:12.169 just dispensing the exact same dopamine hit that 00:04:12.169 --> 00:04:13.770 made you famous in the first place. They want 00:04:13.770 --> 00:04:15.509 the drum and bass they already know they like. 00:04:15.909 --> 00:04:19.410 Precisely. For Warmsley, the name Lee Bannon 00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:22.550 had morphed from a brand into a cage. If he tried 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:25.589 to release a weird ambient noise album under 00:04:25.589 --> 00:04:27.689 the name Lee Bannon, the audience would reject 00:04:27.689 --> 00:04:30.389 it. Not because it was bad, but because it wasn't 00:04:30.389 --> 00:04:32.529 drum and bass. Right, because it violated their 00:04:32.529 --> 00:04:35.649 expectations. By literally killing off the persona, 00:04:36.129 --> 00:04:38.829 declaring himself not Bannon, he was giving himself 00:04:38.829 --> 00:04:41.990 psychological permission to fail. Wow. He was 00:04:41.990 --> 00:04:43.970 insulating himself from the expectations of his 00:04:43.970 --> 00:04:46.850 teenage years. It's really the only way a creator 00:04:46.850 --> 00:04:50.350 can return to a state of total unapologetic experimentation. 00:04:51.149 --> 00:04:52.730 You listening to this right now, think about 00:04:52.730 --> 00:04:54.930 the one thing you are most known for at work 00:04:54.930 --> 00:04:56.910 or even in your friend group, you know, the thing 00:04:56.910 --> 00:04:59.569 people rely on you for. Now imagine the sheer 00:04:59.569 --> 00:05:02.069 terror of walking into a room tomorrow and declaring 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:04.449 you will never ever do that thing again. It's 00:05:04.449 --> 00:05:07.110 a huge leap. That is the cliff edge Warmsley 00:05:07.110 --> 00:05:10.250 jumped off, and by the summer of 2015, that freefall 00:05:10.250 --> 00:05:12.730 settles into a brand new moniker entirely, which 00:05:12.730 --> 00:05:15.750 is Betta Cain Cut. Which brings us to the actual 00:05:15.750 --> 00:05:18.290 mechanics of the music. Because, you know, dropping 00:05:18.290 --> 00:05:20.370 a name is just a PR move unless you actually 00:05:20.370 --> 00:05:23.420 change the sonic palette. And the geography of 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:26.339 how he built this new sound is just as disjointed. 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:29.040 He actually started the early recording for this 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:32.040 project way back in December 2014 in his personal 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:34.680 studio in Brooklyn. Oh, right, when it was tentatively 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:38.189 titled ANA. Yeah, exactly. But... He hits pause 00:05:38.189 --> 00:05:41.089 on it to finish up some final Lee Bannon obligations. 00:05:41.810 --> 00:05:43.769 When he finally resumes recording under the new 00:05:43.769 --> 00:05:46.889 Dedekind Cut identity in 2015, he doesn't go 00:05:46.889 --> 00:05:49.089 back to the Brooklyn studio. He travels to Dublin, 00:05:49.089 --> 00:05:51.569 Ireland. Yeah. He sets up in the Gresham Hotel 00:05:51.569 --> 00:05:54.800 and gets to work. Which is brilliant. Changing 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:56.819 your physical environment is a classic method 00:05:56.819 --> 00:05:59.439 for breaking cognitive loops. I mean, you can't 00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:01.079 make the same old music if you aren't looking 00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:03.360 at the same old four walls. Here's where it gets 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.259 really interesting for me. The shift in the actual 00:06:06.259 --> 00:06:10.180 genre is staggering. We're talking about a producer 00:06:10.180 --> 00:06:13.959 known for highly structured, fast -paced rhythmic 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:17.079 EDM. And he completely pivots. Completely. Into 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:20.339 new age, ambient, and harsh noise. It's like 00:06:20.339 --> 00:06:22.240 a famous architect who used to build perfectly 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:24.819 structured skyscrapers, suddenly deciding to 00:06:24.819 --> 00:06:27.360 build houses entirely out of fog and glass. That's 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:29.759 a great analogy. He's painting with textures 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:32.199 instead of drawing lines. But how do you actually 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:35.019 engineer that in a studio? Well, you had to fundamentally 00:06:35.019 --> 00:06:37.300 change your tools. Like you said with the architect, 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:40.040 you cannot build a fog bank using a hammer and 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:42.959 nails. Right. The source notes that Warmsley 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:44.839 leaned heavily on a piece of software called 00:06:44.839 --> 00:06:48.199 Max developed by Cycling 74. I saw that in the 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:49.660 article but what does that actually mean? Is 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:51.540 it just a different recording program like Pro 00:06:51.540 --> 00:06:54.180 Tools or something? Not at all. A standard digital 00:06:54.180 --> 00:06:57.540 audio workstation or DAW gives you a timeline 00:06:57.540 --> 00:07:00.139 and a grid. You place a kick drum on beat one, 00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:02.560 a snare on beat two, you have total control. 00:07:03.100 --> 00:07:05.860 Max is completely different. It is a visual programming 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:08.620 language. Instead of placing audio on a timeline, 00:07:09.300 --> 00:07:11.680 you were patching together virtual cables to 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.899 create custom algorithms. Wait, algorithms? For 00:07:14.899 --> 00:07:18.240 music? Yeah. Wormsley was building looping rigs 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:22.319 in Macs that generated sound unpredictably. He 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:24.540 was essentially surrendering his direct control 00:07:24.540 --> 00:07:26.800 over the rhythm. So he's just letting the software 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:29.079 make some of the decisions for him. He's setting 00:07:29.079 --> 00:07:30.879 the parameters and letting the machine breathe. 00:07:31.129 --> 00:07:34.050 He also utilized a specific piece of hardware 00:07:34.050 --> 00:07:37.089 called the Roland Integra 7 synth module, which 00:07:37.089 --> 00:07:40.269 is famous for its incredibly dense, complex sound 00:07:40.269 --> 00:07:43.110 modeling. Wow. And importantly, he didn't mix 00:07:43.110 --> 00:07:45.790 this alone. He co -produced the album with Al 00:07:45.790 --> 00:07:48.310 Carlson. Right, and Carlson is a highly influential 00:07:48.310 --> 00:07:50.949 producer in the experimental space. He's known 00:07:50.949 --> 00:07:53.110 for his work on Oneutrix Point Never's album 00:07:53.110 --> 00:07:56.470 Replica and St. Vincent's Marry Me. Bringing 00:07:56.470 --> 00:07:59.009 Carlson into the mix was a crucial architectural 00:07:59.009 --> 00:08:01.689 decision. Carlson really understands how to take 00:08:01.689 --> 00:08:04.550 these wild algorithmically generated soundscapes 00:08:04.550 --> 00:08:06.870 and shape them into something that actually impacts 00:08:06.870 --> 00:08:09.029 human emotion. And the music press immediately 00:08:09.029 --> 00:08:11.930 recognized how jarring this shift was. The Pitchfork 00:08:11.930 --> 00:08:14.870 Review gave successor a very strong 8 .2 out 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:18.050 of 10, and they praised the albums, and I am 00:08:18.050 --> 00:08:20.290 obsessed with this phrase, productive discomfort. 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:22.350 Productive discomfort, it's so good. They noted 00:08:22.350 --> 00:08:25.170 its willingness to just abruptly crescendo or 00:08:25.170 --> 00:08:28.240 screech. to a halt. Another outlet, Tiny Mixtapes, 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:30.180 specifically pointed out that the album places 00:08:30.180 --> 00:08:32.639 texture and relationship and sound high above 00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:34.860 rhythm and melody. Which is exactly what we were 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:37.000 talking about with the Fog Bank. But hold on, 00:08:37.340 --> 00:08:40.500 productive discomfort. Those two words feel like 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:43.980 they shouldn't go together. Usually, discomfort 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:46.440 makes people turn the music off. It does if you're 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:48.840 looking for background music. Right. But productive 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:52.679 discomfort is a vital mechanism for active engagement. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.740 How do you mean? Well, comfort is static. When 00:08:55.740 --> 00:08:58.679 a beat is predictable, your brain goes on autopilot. 00:08:59.259 --> 00:09:01.759 You stop actually listening. Right, it just becomes 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:04.320 wallpaper. Stepping into productive discomfort, 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:06.899 where a lush synth pad suddenly turns into an 00:09:06.899 --> 00:09:09.240 abrasive screech, or where the rhythm completely 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:11.360 drops out and leaves you on a sonic freefall, 00:09:12.059 --> 00:09:14.600 that forces the listener's brain to wake up. 00:09:14.740 --> 00:09:17.299 It demands your attention. It demands that you 00:09:17.299 --> 00:09:19.870 question what you are experiencing. Wormsley 00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:21.850 and Carlson weren't just in the studio making 00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:24.629 beats. They were engineering sonic environments 00:09:24.629 --> 00:09:27.669 that feel alien and unsettling, but ultimately 00:09:27.669 --> 00:09:30.110 reward the listener who is willing to sit patiently 00:09:30.110 --> 00:09:32.669 in that tension. So we have this new philosophy, 00:09:32.909 --> 00:09:35.549 these algorithmic tools, and this goal of creating 00:09:35.549 --> 00:09:39.610 tension, but an empty canvas is terrifying. What 00:09:39.610 --> 00:09:42.149 actual source material is he feeding into these 00:09:42.149 --> 00:09:45.370 looping rigs to create this fog? Because the 00:09:45.370 --> 00:09:47.830 list of influences cited for this album reads 00:09:47.830 --> 00:09:50.970 like a surrealist mad lib. It really does. The 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:53.330 contrast in his inspirations is arguably the 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:55.230 most fascinating part of the entire project. 00:09:55.350 --> 00:09:58.509 In a 2016 interview, Warmsley cited the minimalist 00:09:58.509 --> 00:10:01.429 downtown music pioneers, people like Philip Glass, 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:03.610 Steve Reich. OK, that tracks for ambient music. 00:10:03.649 --> 00:10:06.230 Right, that makes sense. But then he explicitly 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:09.590 cites 90s New Age markers. We are talking about 00:10:09.590 --> 00:10:13.009 Yanni. With Yanni. Yes. Yanni's track, One Man's 00:10:13.009 --> 00:10:15.830 Dream. The quintessential mall kiosk relaxation 00:10:15.830 --> 00:10:19.470 music. Exactly. He also cites Moby's 1995 track, 00:10:19.590 --> 00:10:22.230 When It's Cold, I'd Like to Die, and even Michael 00:10:22.230 --> 00:10:25.389 Creech's project Enigma, specifically the massive 00:10:25.389 --> 00:10:28.049 global hit Return to Innocence. Oh, wow. And 00:10:28.049 --> 00:10:29.649 just to make sure the blender is fully broken, 00:10:29.750 --> 00:10:32.409 he was heavily influenced by the English experimental 00:10:32.409 --> 00:10:35.590 group Coil, who are known for very dark, industrial, 00:10:35.789 --> 00:10:38.210 sometimes abrasive sounds. So you have classical 00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:40.830 minimalism colliding with highly commercialized 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:44.169 90s new age, colliding with aggressive experimental 00:10:44.169 --> 00:10:47.090 noise. My question is, how does someone combine 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:50.330 yanny and harsh industrial noise without it just 00:10:50.330 --> 00:10:52.309 sounding like a garbage disposal? Because he 00:10:52.309 --> 00:10:54.970 isn't copying their song structures. He's extracting 00:10:54.970 --> 00:10:57.710 their sonic textures. If we connect this to the 00:10:57.710 --> 00:11:00.370 bigger picture, Warmsley is treating his influences 00:11:00.370 --> 00:11:04.610 as raw decoupled tools he coupled yeah he might 00:11:04.610 --> 00:11:07.690 take the emotional swelling resonance of an enigma 00:11:07.690 --> 00:11:10.690 synth patch strip away the pop melody and the 00:11:10.690 --> 00:11:13.389 catchy drum beat and just stretch that single 00:11:13.389 --> 00:11:15.490 chord out for three minutes until it becomes 00:11:15.490 --> 00:11:18.970 an imposing wall of sound He's removing the context 00:11:18.970 --> 00:11:21.190 of the original genres. Oh, speaking of context, 00:11:21.389 --> 00:11:23.610 we cannot forget the French composer Eric Sadie. 00:11:23.690 --> 00:11:26.330 Sadie, right? Sadie had this avant -garde concept 00:11:26.330 --> 00:11:29.129 way back in the early 20th century called furniture 00:11:29.129 --> 00:11:32.149 music. The idea was to compose music that was 00:11:32.149 --> 00:11:34.350 specifically designed not to be actively listened 00:11:34.350 --> 00:11:36.409 to. It was supposed to blend into the background 00:11:36.409 --> 00:11:39.250 noises of a room, like a chair or a table. Yeah, 00:11:39.990 --> 00:11:41.889 exactly. Wormsley said this directly inspired 00:11:41.889 --> 00:11:44.049 the piano part at the very end of the album's 00:11:44.049 --> 00:11:56.179 track 46 .50. turning it up with noise and turning 00:11:56.179 --> 00:11:58.940 it down with ambiance. But the Sadie influence 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:01.320 didn't just stay in the music. It bled out into 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:03.779 the real world. When Warmsley announced the album, 00:12:03.860 --> 00:12:06.240 he didn't drop a standard line of t -shirts or 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:09.159 hoodies. He released limited edition yoga and 00:12:09.159 --> 00:12:12.419 meditation mats. Wow. Taking the concept of furniture 00:12:12.419 --> 00:12:15.080 and physical environmental interaction quite 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:17.399 literally. And the actual release strategy is 00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:20.000 where the absolute madness peaks. This album 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.480 was officially set to release on November 11th, 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:26.000 2016. But on November 9th, two days early, he 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.240 executes a move I am still struggling to wrap 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.820 my head around. He streams the entire B -side 00:12:30.820 --> 00:12:38.929 of the album on Wikipedia. Yes. And the unused 00:12:38.929 --> 00:12:41.149 bonus tracks, which have these incredibly cryptic 00:12:41.149 --> 00:12:44.230 titles like Ayahuasca, Binary, Zero, Ten Zero. 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:46.970 He doesn't put those on Spotify or Apple Music. 00:12:47.309 --> 00:12:50.250 He dumps them on Mediafire. Mediafire. Yeah. 00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:52.370 For those who don't remember, Mediafire is just 00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:55.750 a bare bones file hosting drop site. It's where 00:12:55.750 --> 00:12:57.950 you used to go to download sketchy zip files 00:12:57.950 --> 00:13:01.149 in 2008. So streaming on an encyclopedia site. 00:13:01.549 --> 00:13:04.870 dropping files on MediaFire, selling yoga mats. 00:13:05.250 --> 00:13:07.750 Was this album rollout just a giant, pretentious 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:10.110 piece of performance art? It's easy to dismiss 00:13:10.110 --> 00:13:12.350 it as a gimmick, but look at the mechanism of 00:13:12.350 --> 00:13:15.070 what he's actually doing. It is an exercise in 00:13:15.070 --> 00:13:17.570 context framing. Context framing. Wormsley knew 00:13:17.570 --> 00:13:20.029 that if he put this slow, beatless, uncomfortable 00:13:20.029 --> 00:13:22.629 album onto a standard streaming platform, people 00:13:22.629 --> 00:13:24.730 would consume it with a pop music mindset. They 00:13:24.730 --> 00:13:26.529 would listen for 30 seconds, realize there was 00:13:26.529 --> 00:13:29.049 no drop, and skip to the next artist. They treat 00:13:29.049 --> 00:13:31.169 it like Lee Bannon music and get mad. Exactly. 00:13:31.470 --> 00:13:34.610 But by placing his music on Wikipedia, a website 00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:36.830 your brain associates with deep reading, research, 00:13:37.070 --> 00:13:39.529 and patience, he is forcefully shifting your 00:13:39.529 --> 00:13:41.909 psychological state before you even hear the 00:13:41.909 --> 00:13:44.590 first note. Oh, that is brilliant. He is forcing 00:13:44.590 --> 00:13:47.830 you, the audience, to completely reevaluate how 00:13:47.830 --> 00:13:50.919 and where art is consumed. He's taking the music 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:53.139 out of the commercial pipeline where music is 00:13:53.139 --> 00:13:55.860 treated as a disposable product and placing it 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.620 in spaces meant for deep meditation or factual 00:13:58.620 --> 00:14:01.340 archiving or raw data transfer in the case of 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:04.460 MediaFire. It short circuits your standard consumption 00:14:04.460 --> 00:14:07.179 habits. That is the real aha moment here. If 00:14:07.179 --> 00:14:09.460 you want people to engage deeply with your work, 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:11.700 sometimes you don't just change the work itself. 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:13.759 You have to radically alter the environment where 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.779 you deliver it. Spot on. So we've seen the metamorphosis 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:20.259 from the cage of Lebanon. algorithmic texture 00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:23.039 -heavy method in the studio, and we've seen the 00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:26.659 wildly disruptive Wikipedia rollout. How do we, 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:28.799 as listeners, actually sit down and process a 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:31.700 40 -minute and 56 -second album that actively 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:34.580 refuses to be put in a box? Well, even the professional 00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:36.779 critics grappled with that exact question. They 00:14:36.779 --> 00:14:38.799 really did. There's a review from a publication 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.080 called The Drainage. They gave the album a very 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:43.700 high 8 .4 out of 10, but the reviewer expressed 00:14:43.700 --> 00:14:46.340 some real palpable skepticism about the album 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:48.399 constantly hovering between several different 00:14:48.169 --> 00:14:51.570 genres. Which is a completely natural human reaction 00:14:51.570 --> 00:14:53.909 to having your expectations subverted for 40 00:14:53.909 --> 00:14:56.549 minutes. And the reviewers quote perfectly captures 00:14:56.549 --> 00:14:58.950 the duality of this record. He wrote that the 00:14:58.950 --> 00:15:01.629 album hovering between genres shows off Warmsley's 00:15:01.629 --> 00:15:04.889 taste and creative dexterity but he says this 00:15:04.889 --> 00:15:08.169 album is bound to be perceived as a quote what 00:15:08.169 --> 00:15:11.549 the f is going on Eric Andre show set. That analogy 00:15:11.549 --> 00:15:14.350 is so incredibly sharp. So what does this all 00:15:14.350 --> 00:15:16.929 mean for you listening right now? I think that 00:15:16.929 --> 00:15:18.889 Eric Andre Show Comparison unlocks the whole 00:15:18.889 --> 00:15:21.809 project. If you've ever seen that television 00:15:21.809 --> 00:15:24.610 show, at first glance, it looks like utter destructive 00:15:24.610 --> 00:15:28.470 chaos. The host is literally screaming, breaking 00:15:28.470 --> 00:15:31.210 his own desk with a baseball bat, and the celebrity 00:15:31.210 --> 00:15:33.330 guests are terrified. It looks like a mess. Right. 00:15:33.409 --> 00:15:35.549 It looks totally unhinged. But if you look closely 00:15:35.549 --> 00:15:37.649 at the editing, the pacing, and the camera work, 00:15:37.870 --> 00:15:41.049 it is actually a highly orchestrated, painstakingly 00:15:41.049 --> 00:15:44.429 produced comedic performance. The chaos isn't 00:15:44.429 --> 00:15:47.450 an accident. The chaos is the point. Oh, I see. 00:15:47.610 --> 00:15:49.809 Data Can Cut took all these disparate pieces, 00:15:50.269 --> 00:15:52.750 the algorithmic loops, the harsh noise, the yanny 00:15:52.750 --> 00:15:55.950 synths, the Wikipedia drops, and orchestrated 00:15:55.950 --> 00:15:59.429 a masterpiece of intentional, organized chaos. 00:15:59.750 --> 00:16:02.490 And the broader community agreed. Pitchfork named 00:16:02.490 --> 00:16:05.470 it among the best experimental albums of 2016. 00:16:06.289 --> 00:16:09.250 Tiny Mixtapes ranked at number 17 and The Vinyl 00:16:09.250 --> 00:16:12.610 Factory put it at number 5. Which are huge accolades. 00:16:12.750 --> 00:16:14.950 They really are. And this raises an important 00:16:14.950 --> 00:16:16.809 question for everyone listening to this deep 00:16:16.809 --> 00:16:20.029 dive. Where in your own life or your own career 00:16:20.029 --> 00:16:23.649 are you demanding neat easily digestible melodies 00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:26.129 when you should actually be exploring complex 00:16:26.129 --> 00:16:28.529 textures. That is a great question to ask. We 00:16:28.529 --> 00:16:30.830 live in a society that is desperate for labels 00:16:30.830 --> 00:16:33.629 and categories. Lee Bannon was a highly profitable 00:16:33.629 --> 00:16:36.889 category, but dedicated cut is a texture. Sometimes 00:16:36.889 --> 00:16:39.269 being truly well -informed or truly innovative 00:16:39.269 --> 00:16:41.549 in your field means you have to sit comfortably 00:16:41.549 --> 00:16:43.490 in the gray areas between defined boundaries. 00:16:43.529 --> 00:16:45.429 You have to embrace the productive discomfort. 00:16:45.730 --> 00:16:47.809 Exactly. That same productive discomfort that 00:16:47.809 --> 00:16:49.610 warms Lee chased all the way to a hotel room 00:16:49.610 --> 00:16:52.120 in Dublin. You have to be willing to be thoroughly 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:54.259 confused in order to actually learn something 00:16:54.259 --> 00:16:57.059 new. You have to let the desk get smashed, so 00:16:57.059 --> 00:17:00.240 to speak. So to wrap up this incredible journey, 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.539 we've followed Fred Wormsley as he burned down 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:07.359 his successful persona, isolated himself, embraced 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:10.339 visual programming over traditional beats, blended 00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:13.559 minimalist classical with 90s New Age, and dropped 00:17:13.559 --> 00:17:16.880 a sonic puzzle onto an encyclopedia website just 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:19.779 to force us to pay attention. It is a profound 00:17:19.779 --> 00:17:22.940 testament to the courage required for true reinvention. 00:17:23.140 --> 00:17:25.359 It really is. Thank you for coming on this intellectual 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:27.640 and musical exploration with us today. It's been 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:29.700 a fascinating deep dive. But before we let you 00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:31.940 go, I want to leave you with one final lingering 00:17:31.940 --> 00:17:33.680 mystery from the source material that we haven't 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:35.519 even touched on yet. Oh, there's more. There 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:37.920 is. If you look at the track listing for Side 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:40.599 A of Successor, there is a track, Track 3, titled 00:17:40.599 --> 00:17:43.259 Conversation with Angels. It's an eight and a 00:17:43.259 --> 00:17:45.880 half minute epic. But what is truly wild about 00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:48.650 this track is the writing credits. The list of 00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:50.990 collaborators is staggering for an album that 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:54.130 is supposed to be about personal isolation. Exactly. 00:17:54.289 --> 00:17:57.349 The track credits Fred Wormsley, Chino Moby, 00:17:57.549 --> 00:17:59.430 who was instrumental in bringing the album to 00:17:59.430 --> 00:18:02.329 a label, Al Carlson, Mason Youngblood, and Joshua 00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:04.710 Davis. Now, if you know anything about electronic 00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:07.170 music history, Joshua Davis is the legendary 00:18:07.170 --> 00:18:10.410 producer DJ Shadow. Right. He is arguably one 00:18:10.410 --> 00:18:12.809 of the founding fathers of instrumental hip hop. 00:18:13.130 --> 00:18:15.630 Having his fingerprint on this track is massive. 00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:18.920 So I want you to ponder this paradox in an album 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:21.700 born entirely from an artist wanting to isolate 00:18:21.700 --> 00:18:24.140 himself, an artist wanting to brutally sever 00:18:24.140 --> 00:18:26.140 ties with his commercial past and strike out 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:28.759 on a completely solo, unpredictable journey. 00:18:29.779 --> 00:18:31.960 Why does the centerpiece track of the entire 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:34.339 album require five different brilliant minds 00:18:34.339 --> 00:18:36.299 to write it? Are these diverse collaborators? 00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:39.960 DJ Shadow, Carlson, Amobe, Youngblood. Are they 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:41.859 the very angels the title is referring to? I 00:18:41.859 --> 00:18:44.279 encourage you to seek out track three, Conversation 00:18:44.279 --> 00:18:47.039 with Angels, and decode the textures for yourself. 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:49.880 Think about what actually happens when you erase 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:52.599 the whiteboard of your past. Sometimes you don't 00:18:52.599 --> 00:18:55.140 end up drawing alone at all. Sometimes clearing 00:18:55.140 --> 00:18:57.339 the board just makes room for a completely different 00:18:57.339 --> 00:18:59.279 kind of collaboration. Until next time.