''Channel Pressure'' is the debut studio album of
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
duo
Ford & Lopatin
Ford & Lopatin (formerly known as Games) is an American electronic duo composed of musicians Daniel Lopatin (better known as Oneohtrix Point Never) and Joel Ford (of the group Tigercity). The group's sound draws on disparate genres such as 1980 ...
, consisting of producers Daniel Lopatin (aka
Oneohtrix Point Never
Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American Experimental music, experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His music has utilized wikt:trope, tropes from various ...
) and Joel Ford. Following the group's abandonment of their previous name "Games" for legal reasons, they recorded the album at Gary's Electric Studios in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
. It was released on June 7, 2011 as the first album to be issued on Software, Lopatin's own label under the
Mexican Summer
Mexican Summer is an independent record label founded in 2009 by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo. Based in Brooklyn, the label has released recordings from artists including Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, Weyes Blood, ...
imprint.
''Channel Pressure'' is a
concept album
A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...
about a teen named Joey Rogers who is brainwashed by voices from a
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...
. Musically, the album draws on an eclectic variety of 1980s music styles, including
electropop
Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...
,
white soul
Blue-eyed soul (also called white soul) is rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music performed by White people, white artists. The term was coined in the mid-1960s, to describe white artists whose sound was similar to that of the predominantly black ...
,
R&B,
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
, and
new age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
, as well as cluttered and improved quality production techniques than heard on their previous releases. It features production and vocal contributions from Al Carlson,
Autre Ne Veut
Arthur Ashin (born 20 April 1982), known professionally as Autre Ne Veut, is an American singer-songwriter and musician from New York City.
The name Autre Ne Veut is taken from an inscription in French on a 15th-century British dress ornament th ...
, and
Jeff Gitelman.
The album was promoted with two singles, "Emergency Room" and "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)." ''Channel Pressure'' garnered favorable reviews from professional
music journalist
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
s upon its release, and was number 18 on a year-end list of the best albums of 2011 by ''
Gorilla vs. Bear''.
Background and production
Ford & Lopatin formed in 2009 under the moniker Games.
Their debut record ''
That We Can Play'' (2010) was an extended play that was produced by recording and editing one single stereo
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...
improv jam.
[Friedlander, Emilie (February 11, 2011)]
"Games' Dan Lopatin Talks New Label, Name Change"
''Altered Zones''. Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...
. Archived from th
original
on February 14, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2017. In an August 2010 interview, Ford said that he had recently met in Brooklyn with
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He rose to prominence while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as with his film scores for television an ...
's son, who was a fan of the Tigercity project, so he could talk about recording the synths for Games' first full-length album at Hammer's studio in upstate New York, and announced they would begin recording the LP at the studio in December: "We're on the concept still, but it definitely involves athletic cuts and smooth jazz-fusion."
In the fall of 2010, Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo, founders of the imprint
Mexican Summer
Mexican Summer is an independent record label founded in 2009 by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo. Based in Brooklyn, the label has released recordings from artists including Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, Weyes Blood, ...
, had a conversation with Ford and Lopatin where they suggested that the group form a new label and studio under Mexican Summer.
[Beta, Andy (June 10, 2011)]
"Q&A: Ford & Lopatin On Playing Together And Playing With Studio Toys"
''The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
''. Peter Barbey. Retrieved July 31, 2017. In February 2011, the duo changed their name to Ford & Lopatin, reportedly to preempt legal issues with the
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label based in Santa Monica, California, owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture ...
artist
Game
A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...
,
and started the label Software under Mexican Summer; ''Channel Pressure'' was Software's first release. Like ''That We Can Play'', ''Channel Pressure'' was produced with the software Pro Tools.
However, it was recorded in a much bigger studio with more advanced equipment, meaning the recording of the jam sessions involved instruments that were signaled to multiple channels instead of just one track all together like ''That We Can Play'', which led to many more possibilities in how each song would be crafted and edited.
Lopatin said his use of the program for making ''Channel Pressure'' increased his comfort and familiarity with the program. He described the development process as "kind of a
White Album thing going on where some songs were more driven by Joel, some by me. But whatever ideas were on the table, both of us were kind of throwing a lot of stuff together."
The Gaia synth by
Roland
Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...
was used to achieve what he called "the weird scat dad sounds": "It's definitely like we wanted to do almost this
J-pop
J-pop (often stylized in all caps; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in trad ...
, cartoony thing and to have this overload of interesting synth moments,
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and teacher.
Dolby came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including "She Blinded Me ...
style, where he's showing you all these little strange
..but in a fun way that's not wanky, being a zoo of little synth emotions and shapes."
Composition
The style of ''Channel Pressure'' was described by ''
Beats per Minute
Beat, beats, or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact
* Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact
* Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of in ...
'' as a mixture of "80s throwback
electropop
Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...
, happy hooks,
new-aged tinged video game overworld themes, ''
Rhythm Nation
"Rhythm Nation" is a song by American singer Janet Jackson, released as the second single from her fourth studio album, '' Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814'' (1989). It was written and produced by Jackson, in collaboration with Jimmy Jam and ...
''-era industrial
R&B, and a liberally applied layer of synthy cheese"
and by ''
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles
* Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...
'' magazine as
pastiche
A pastiche () is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking ...
in the vein of
Ariel Pink
Ariel Marcus Rosenberg ( ; born June 24, 1978), professionally known as Ariel Pink, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter whose work draws heavily from the popular music of the 1960s–1980s. His lo-fi aesthetic and home-recorded al ...
.
Some critics noted the record's glitchy and hectic arrangements and sound structures.
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
described the album as "blurring the boundaries between brittle digi-funk, gooey, soft-focus R & B, wonky
fusion jazz
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
, noodly electro-
prog, and chintzy
new age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
."
Scott Morrow of ''Alarm'' magazine categorized the album as a "modern and experimental twist" of 1980s music and described the sound as "
Prefuse 73
Guillermo Scott Herren is an American producer who has been based in Atlanta, Barcelona, and New York City. Herren releases music under the aliases Prefuse 73, Delarosa & Asora, Ahmad Szabo, and Piano Overlord, and is also part of the groups S ...
twisting around the
Miami Vice
''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, Ricardo "Rico" Tub ...
theme."
In the words of Patrick Hajduch, another ''Alarm'' magazine journalist, ''Channel Pressure'' is a "jittery, looped amalgam of trashy ’80s vibes" where instrument and vocal recordings are
decreased in sample rate, "deconstructed," and "smashed back together;" the record has a "smooth ’80s sound and quasi-
R&B song structures" that contradict its "crazy programming."
The hectic sound editing is most prevalent in the instrumental facet of the album,
where, as Conrad Tao of ''Sputnikmusic'' explained, "layers build upon one another and drop out without warning, beats appear out of nowhere, and
flanger
Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and (usually) gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and ...
s are employed liberally."
''
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...
'' critic Richard Elliott noted a "stutter of the past" in the album's drum parts which was a symbol of the "general battle between analog and digital, “real” and synthesized, that occupied so much of that era’s aesthetics."
As Becker analyzed, the use of vocals on ''Channel Pressure'' makes the album "a collection of pop songs rather than yet another instrumental so-old-it’s-new electronic album."
Joel Ford sings in a
falsetto
Falsetto ( , ; Italian language, Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.
It is produced by the vibration of the ...
in the style of
Green Gartside
Green Gartside (born Paul Julian Strohmeyer; 22 June 1955) is a Welsh singer, songwriter and musician. He is the frontman of the band Scritti Politti.
Early life
Gartside was born on 22 June 1955 in Cardiff, Wales, to a "Cup-a-Soup salesman dad ...
,
Jimmy Somerville
James William Somerville (born 22 June 1961) is a singer from Glasgow, Scotland who rose to prominence in the 1980s with the synth-pop groups Bronski Beat and the Communards. With Bronski Beat, Somerville achieved commercial success with the 1 ...
,
and
Lewis Taylor
Lewis Taylor (born 20 January 1966) is a British multi-instrumentalist musician, born and raised in Barnet, North London, England, in the late 1960s. He started in the music business as a guitarist touring with the psychedelic rock band Edgar B ...
,
and his vocals are filtered with
auto-tune
Auto-Tune is audio processor software released on September 19, 1997, by the American company Antares Audio Technologies. It uses a proprietary device to measure and Pitch correction, correct pitch in music. It operates on different principles ...
.
Tao described the singing as "creepily emotionless" and "purposefully robotic, acting as the voice of God if God sounded like a male version of
GLaDOS
GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) is a fictional character from the video game series '' Portal''. The character was created by Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift, and voiced by Ellen McLain. GLaDOS is depicted in the series as an ar ...
;" he analyzes that the robotic aspect of the singing gives "the knowingly cheesy melodies a welcome (if superficial) feeling of gravitas."
Concept
''Channel Pressure'' is a
concept album
A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...
imagined as a
retrofuturistic
Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipat ...
story that takes place in the year 2082.
Combining elements of the plots of ''
WarGames
''WarGames'' is a 1983 American techno-thriller film directed by John Badham, written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, and starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood and Ally Sheedy. Broderick plays David Lightman, a ...
'' (1983),
''
Tron
''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer ...
'' (1982),
and ''
Donnie Darko
''Donnie Darko'' is a 2001 American Science fiction film, science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly (filmmaker), Richard Kelly in his List of directorial debuts, directorial debut, and produced by Flower ...
'' (2001),
the story involves a "mild-mannered" teenaged
antihero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero or two words anti hero) or anti-heroine is a character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism and morality. Al ...
named Joey Rogers who is brainwashed by several voices transmitted to his subconscious by a record industry-controlling
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...
named System II from a television while he's asleep.
["Ford & Lopatin – Channel Pressure"](_blank)
Mexican Summer. Retrieved June 8, 2015. The voices control him to break into a music equipment store.
Rowan Savage found this story similar to
Victor Tausk's
concept of the "influencing machine" that controls the human. He explained that the frequent number of references to television in the lyrics "locate the album somewhere between the technology of the past and that of the future, between 1984 and the virtualized separation of image from machine."
Ford & Lopatin conceived the idea of the Joey Rogers character while riding a bus to
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
.
Tracks
''Channel Pressure'' opens with "Scumsoft", where Rogers, while clicking through channels on the television, is possessed by snippets of demonic shows.
The track is a montage of samples from randomly-chosen
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
videos Lopatin played through Al Carlson's tape echo filter.
Lopatin jokingly described YouTube as the "second-best synth" used for the making of the album, being topped by the
Roland Jupiter-8
The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.
The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3,300 units have ...
.
Heems
Himanshu Kumar Suri (born July 6, 1985), better known by his stage name Heems, is an American rapper. Suri came to prominence as a member of the alternative hip hop group Das Racist, with whom he released two mixtapes and one album. Suri has ...
from the
alternative hip hop
Alternative hip-hop (also known as alternative rap and experimental hip-hop) is a subgenre of hip-hop music that encompasses a wide range of styles that are not typically identified as mainstream. AllMusic defines it as comprising "hip-hop group ...
group
Das Racist
Das Racist was an American alternative hip hop group based in Brooklyn, composed of MCs Heems and Kool A.D. and hype man Ashok Kondabolu (a.k.a. Dapwell or Dap). Known for their use of humor, academic references, foreign allusions, and unconv ...
recorded a full verse for the album, but only a part of it was used and was featured near the end of "Scumsoft".
''Channel Pressure''
's title track, described by Lopatin as "one of the more developed Jupiter 8
MIDI
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
jams", introduces the
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...
System II that brainwashes Rogers throughout the album.
In this track, the computer is voiced by Mexican Summer staff member Julia Krivonos.
The
Omnisphere strings that play during the song's chorus were added by Ford and Lopatin after the mixing was done, which angered Guillermo.
Dried, ominous
dub-esque soundscapes,
a
ska
Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...
-influenced guitar
played by Jeff Gitelman, and a repeating flute
trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and ...
riff performing a riff a la the theme for ''
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly'' are also present in the instrumentation.
"Emergency Room" was ''Channel Pressure''
's
lead single
A lead single (or first single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date.
A similar term, "debut ...
, released on April 25, 2011.
It's a joyous track that ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applie ...
''
's Zach Kelly compared to "forgotten B-movie soundtracks from the decade of excess"
and Ken Taylor of ''
XLR8R
''XLR8R'' (pronounced "accelerator") is a website that covers music, culture, style, and technology. It was originally also a print magazine.
History and profile
''XLR8R'' was founded as a newsprint zine in 1993 by publisher Andrew Smith in S ...
'' the works of
Oingo Boingo
Oingo Boingo () was an American new wave music, new wave band formed by songwriter Danny Elfman in 1979. The band emerged from a Surrealism, surrealist musical theatre troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, that Elfman had led and wri ...
.
In the middle of the track's running time,
Gitelman's
jazz metal
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
-style guitar solo is performed with inharmonious vocal stabs in the background.
All of the sporadic instances are calmed when Ford sings "Although I'm dinged up, voices are going away."
The song's
Roland D-50
The Roland D-50 is a synthesizer produced by Roland and released in April of 1987. Its features include digital sample-based subtractive synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analog synthesis-styled layout desig ...
bass riff
was compared by Kelly to that of the
Gary Numan
Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the New wave music, new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two st ...
song "
Cars
A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...
".
In "Rock Center Paranoia", which Lopatin called a "fake metal jam,"
Rogers has an anxiety attack in a music equipment shop.
The song features a
Minimoog
The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
the duo bought from the door next to where they were recording ''Channel Pressure'', as well as another guitar part from Gitelman where he is "shredding seventh-grade style."
"Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)" was ''Channel Pressure''
's second single; it was the first of ten tracks to be issued under
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (stylized as dult swim
Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representativ ...
and s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...
's 2011 ''Singles Program''.
Upon its June 13, 2011 release under the program, it received the label of "Best New Track" from a review of the track by Kelly for ''Pitchfork''.
The track depicts Rogers as excited to record an album in his own dreamland while riding in a
hatchback
A hatchback is a car body style, car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row sea ...
on an elevated
interstate
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National H ...
.
It starts out as a
lament
A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something ...
sounding like what Lopatin described as a "subterranean
S&M steam world",
musically arranged with "alien-sounding" synthesizers and sounds commonly found in
Industrial music.
It then turns into an "archetypal synth pop banger" with synth stabs reminiscent of those in
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
and
The Revolution's "
Purple Rain" and "deliciously cheesy guitar wailing," Kelly analyzed.
Savage compared its instrumental to
New Order's "
Blue Monday", and noted its "fretless bass aesthetic characteristic" similar to that of musician
Mick Karn
Andonis Michaelides (Greek: Αντώνης Μιχαηλίδης; 24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was a British musician who rose to fame as the bassist for the art rock/ new wave band Japan. His distinctive fretles ...
.
As Ford and Lopatin's "secret recipe", most of the songs written for ''Channel Pressure'', started out as
smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is commercially oriented crossover jazz music. Although often described as a "genre", it is a debatable and highly controversial subject in jazz music circles. As a radio format, however, smooth jazz radio became the successor to e ...
songs before Ford and Lopatin began experimenting with them.
The making of "New Planet" is the best example of this process;
Ford and Lopatin built the track around
fretless bass
A fretless bass is an electric bass guitar whose neck lacks frets and thus is smooth like traditional string instruments, and like the neck of an acoustic double bass. While the fretless bass is played in all styles of music, it is most common in ...
guitar lead melodies and synth pads, and
Prefuse 73
Guillermo Scott Herren is an American producer who has been based in Atlanta, Barcelona, and New York City. Herren releases music under the aliases Prefuse 73, Delarosa & Asora, Ahmad Szabo, and Piano Overlord, and is also part of the groups S ...
, in the duo's words, "took this one above the clouds."
Jokingly described by Ford and Lopatin as "our sweet
ELO ripoff jam," "The Voices" lyrically has a
double meaning
A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, one of which is typically obvious, and the other often conveys a message that would be too socially unacc ...
; the song is about Roger hearing voices, but at the same time it also talks about
earworm
An earworm or brainworm, also described as sticky music or stuck song syndrome, is a Catchiness, catchy or memorable piece of music or saying that continuously occupies a person's mind even after it is no longer being played or spoken about. In ...
s the narrator hates to have in his brain.
Despite the track's glitchy sound, the song also contains elements of
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...
that gives it a mournful, scented tone.
It is followed by the theme song for and named after Joey Rogers, which is about needing System II to produce the record he wants make that, in Ford's words, "dominates his dreams."
"Dead Jammer" was described by Ford as "ambient
John McLaughlin meets
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...
and
Steve Roach."
Jan Hammer's signature arpeggiated synthesizer riffs and tape echos are present on the track, as well as guitar work from Tigercity's Andrew Brady.
It was described by Marrow as a "
polyrhythm
Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...
ic yet relaxing mixture where the guitar, bass, and programmed sounds all do different things."
"Break Inside", labeled "the
Babyface
Babyface or Baby Face can refer to:
Nicknames
* Lester Joseph Gillis a.k.a. Baby Face Nelson, an infamous 1930s bank robber
* Roosevelt "Baby Face" Willette (1933–1971), an American hard bop and soul-jazz musician
* "Baby Face", Jimmy McLarnin ...
jam" during development, features
Autre Ne Veut
Arthur Ashin (born 20 April 1982), known professionally as Autre Ne Veut, is an American singer-songwriter and musician from New York City.
The name Autre Ne Veut is taken from an inscription in French on a 15th-century British dress ornament th ...
and Gitelman singing the same lead vocal melody in different styles, while Ford acts as "weird computer glue holding them together," Lopatin said.
Categorized as a "lover's
Casio
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...
reggae" song by Lopatin, "I Surrender" is another track on ''Channel Pressure'' featuring vocals from Autre Ne Veut.
The song is followed by "Green Fields", another Hammer-influenced cut on ''Channel Pressure''.
Musically influenced from
Yello
Yello is a Swiss electronic music band, which formed in Zürich in 1979. For most of the band's history, Yello has been a duo consisting of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank; founding member Carlos Perón left in 1983.
Their sound is often charac ...
's song "
Oh Yeah" that Ford and Lopatin heard on a
Twix
Twix is a chocolate bar made by Mars Inc., consisting of a biscuit applied with other confectionery toppings and coatings (most frequently caramel and milk chocolate).The biscuit is typically topped with caramel and then coated with milk chocol ...
television advertisement, "World of Regret" is the part of the album's story where Rogers' "hedonistic last supper" takes place, with a choir of "dads" attending it.
''Channel Pressure'' close with "G's Dream."
Critical reception
''Channel Pressure'' earned moderately positive reviews upon its release. ''
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...
'' critic Richard Elliot wrote a highly favorable review of the record, calling it "a work of heroic heritage—reorganizing an era that is too often dismissed as sterile and empty" and a record that "gets better with every play, with every peeling back of its more obvious, glossy layers."
He analyzed that the LP was "far from being subject to a nostalgia for inauthenticity, or a desire for style over content," and the duo "get involved in the labor of
memory work
Memory work is a process of engaging with the past which has both an ethical and historical dimension. During memory work, the process of producing an image or what we refer to as the production of the imaginary, is central. Therefore, the key in t ...
, piecing together textures and re-composing slabs of sound in ways that challenge and change their original logic."
He also highlighted how the "broken" and unstable arrangements of the tracks are made into "magical pop sounds."
K. Ross Hoffman, a journalist for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
, compared it to
Neon Neon
Neon Neon is a collaborative project from producer Boom Bip and Gruff Rhys, the frontman for the Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals. They began work on the project in October 2006 originally under the moniker Delorean. In March 2008 the duo, ...
's album ''
Stainless Style'' (2008), writing that ''Channel Pressure'' "is equally enjoyable as a painstaking period re-creation drenched in neon nostalgia and nylon nausea, and as a piece of sterling (if decidedly warped) electronic pop music in its own right."
He praised the duo's ability of making sounds from music of the 1980s "feel surprisingly fresh, thanks to their obvious affection for the material and their equally devoted attention to songs
..and sounds."
Larry Fitzmaurice called ''Channel Pressure'' "overstuffed and ridiculous, but also an enticing invitation to plug in and drop out." He praised the vocals and "merely functional" instrumentals, opining that they help "keep the balance right," as well as the old-era-style songwriting.
Savage described ''Channel Pressure'' as a "creation that is equal parts experimentation and familiarity, cheese sincerity, teen affect, cultural diagnostics, and a liberal streak of naïve charm."
He highlighted how the melodies "won’t impress themselves instantly upon the consciousness but rather work their way into it," which was clever given the album's concept about computers manipulating the behavior of a human.
Hajduch praised ''Channel Pressure'' as "something strange and pretty universally likable at the same time" and one of the few records to properly homage music from the 1980s.
Reviewing for ''
Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...
'', Cam Lindsay honored the album for being "shrewd" and accessible to many listeners while still being complex.
[Lindsay, Cam (June 7, 2011)]
"Ford & Lopatin Channel Pressure"
''Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...
''. Retrieved July 30, 2017. The LP later made it to number 16 on the publication's list of the "20 Best Dance & Electronic Albums of 2011."
Tao highlighted the complexity of the sounds used in the album, which helped make it worth repeated listens given that the lyrics mostly has "vague references to the album's concept or express some generic sentiment along the lines of "Big Brother is watching"."
In a more mixed review, writer Ben Schumer felt that while the LP was "enjoyable," it was nothing "more than a time capsule."
He also noted that listeners of works under the Oneohtrix Point Never project would be "shocked by how goofy the dark synth lord can get."
Becker called it "an undeniably fun ride through
EPCOT-themed dreams and technological mysticism," describing it as like "candy; it’s not great for you, but it tastes delicious and goes down easy."
However, he also compared it to Lopatin's album ''
Returnal'' (2010), which was released a year before, and the works of
Joel Vandroogenbroeck and Software acts Peter Mergener and Michael Weisser, who produced music in the same style as ''Channel Pressure'' more than 20 years prior. He opined that in those regards, "much of ''Channel Pressure'' plays disappointingly safe."
Taylor found the LP to be inferior to the previous release of the project ''
That We Can Play'' (2010); he opined that the duo's self-aware and "over-studied" take on 1980s music as well as the "focused and
.over-thought songwriting and production" on ''Channel Pressure'' was at the expense of ''That We Can Play''
's "welcome looseness."
He felt that this led to "too many cultural cues being thrown our way."
He overall described the record as "dated, but not in a good way."
''Channel Pressure'' was number 18 on ''
Gorilla vs. Bear''
's list of the best albums of 2011.
Track listing
Derived from ''Channel Pressure''.
[''Channel Pressure'' (2014). ]Ford & Lopatin
Ford & Lopatin (formerly known as Games) is an American electronic duo composed of musicians Daniel Lopatin (better known as Oneohtrix Point Never) and Joel Ford (of the group Tigercity). The group's sound draws on disparate genres such as 1980 ...
. Software. SFT001.
Personnel
Derived from the liner notes of ''Channel Pressure''.
Recorded at
Gary's Electric Studio in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
from November 2010 to January 2011 and mastered by
Joe LaPorta
Joseph J. LaPorta (born January 19, 1980) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, New Jersey.
Career
LaPorta was born in New York and grew up there; he graduated from New York University with a bachelor's degree in ...
at The Lodge in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.
*
Joel Ford - synthesizers, writing, production, vocals (except "Joey Rogers" and "I Surrender"), drum programming
*
Daniel Lopatin
Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His music has utilized tropes from various musical genres and eras, samp ...
- synthesizers, writing, production, additional drum programming (on "I Surrender")
*
Jeff Gitelman - guitar (except on "Green Fields"), vocals (on "Joey Rogers"), additional vocals (on "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)"), additional vocals and lyrics (on "Break Inside")
*
Autre Ne Veut
Arthur Ashin (born 20 April 1982), known professionally as Autre Ne Veut, is an American singer-songwriter and musician from New York City.
The name Autre Ne Veut is taken from an inscription in French on a 15th-century British dress ornament th ...
- vocals and additional lyrics (on "I Surrender"), additional vocals and lyrics (on "Break Inside")
* Aaron David Cross - additional synthesizers (on "Break inside")
* Paul Hammer - drums (on "The Voices")
* Andrew Brady - guitar (on "Green Fields")
*
Himanshu Suri
Himanshu Kumar Suri (born July 6, 1985), better known by his stage name Heems, is an American rapping, rapper. Suri came to prominence as a member of the alternative hip hop group Das Racist, with whom he released two mixtapes and one album. Sur ...
- vocals on "Scumsoft"
* Julia Krivonos - System II voice (on "Channel Pressure")
* Al Carlson - engineering, vocal programming
* Joe LaPorta - mixing
* Guillermo Scott Herren - mixing
* Thunderhorse - cover art
* B. Sisto - layout and typography
References
{{Authority control
2011 debut albums
Electronic albums by American artists
2010s concept albums
2011 collaborative albums
Experimental music albums by American artists
Funk albums by American artists
Synth-pop albums by American artists