adaa — …img…

The fact that …img…, the latest album from adaaa, ends with a track entitled “entrance”, should give some indication of the inverted logic of this release. adaa’s aesthetic is driven by forces of dissolution rather than those of cogency or wholeness. Listening to the bricolage of found sounds, field recordings, and occasional crooning is like trying to hear multiple radio broadcasts at once; or, like an imaginary station sandwiched between established programs, pulling from their material while scrambling any hope of a clear signal. The metaphor is likely foreign to many who did not grow up with FM radio, but the effect is surely familiar, sitting squarely within the parameters set by the recursive logic of appropriation. Save for the singing, it is almost impossible to discern the origin of adaa’s sources, likely a conscious choice for a generation inherently allergic to the fundamentalism inherent in origins, be they real or imagined.

What is strikingly new on …img… is the promiscuity of material, which on tracks like “p1.fr” and “p2.fake”, indulges pure saccharine pop without judgment or hierarchy. The “anything goes” attitude is not without its deficiencies, however, when heard in total. …img… is so jumbled and purposefully, willfully, disorganized, that listening to it becqmes taxing, the expectation of the unintelligible becoming at times almost predictable. Then, there is the question of the sensibility, which is nearly all that remains, and it is its own beast, like it or not. Were twee not an inherently derisive adjective, I might be tempted to use it (maybe I just did?), but the designation helps to orient …img… on the mood spectrum, for better or worse. 

Those taken with lilting voices inserted within a landscape of borrowed material, without any clear center, will likely find …img… to their liking. It’s not ambient, nor is it the stuff of singer/songwriter material. Between frequencies and radio broadcasts, …img… makes discrete use of the overabundance of sound sources in the audible world, though never truly embracing the gaping void at its core.