American Ozymandias by rgms

Musings: The arm of the record player gazes into the grooves of its patient. Today's procedure will be another extraction, a lobectomy or a lobotomy of sorts, but not so much in the physical sense. Dr. T. Arm received his doctorate in depth psychology from the University of Shellac. He is renown for his shamanic like ability to draw out the unconscious of his subjects. An avid practitioner of hypnotherapy, Dr. Arm induces a state of music; he enters the mind of the patient and travels concentrically towards the ego, peeling back the layers of the unconscious self to reach the identifying agent, the name tag, the 'credits' around which the 'self' orbits. There are scars and traumas and impassible rings within this great tree of the mind, so Dr. Arm takes a less linear, more intuitive approach; leaping like a frog from lily pad to lily pad, occasionally going for a swim in some deep scar tissue to test the waters, Dr. Arm will have us humming everything we never thought and unearthing the delicate orchestrations upon which our very own identity rests. Let's have a look at his latest case study shall we?

~side effects may include dizziness and the urge to disintegrate~

Here, Patrick steps out from behind the shadows of his many projects such as The New Pollution and Chinese Hackers to bring forth a record that speaks from the subconscious. "American Ozymandias" is a series of meditations on memory, melancholia, tranquility, and American society. The source material used on the album is a combination of old WWII era vinyl records retrieved from a dusty family basement. The sounds were created as Patrick "played" the turntable, speeding it up and slowing it down, using certain objects to disrupt playback, and using the tonearm to create odd noises. Current American society full of its materialism and politics can be likened to the setting of a certain famous poem, proclaiming its great might and power. Yet one day it may be the ruins that stretch far and away...

After inheriting a small box of dusty 45” records from his Grandmother, Patrick set out to create a work that was both familiar and alien. Inspired by the recent breakdown of society via COVID19, Patrick found himself in a creative world he had never encountered before. His daily ventures outside of his home gave him time to wander the streets of his town, empty and desolate. Those feelings of eeriness and liminality drove the idea of American Ozymandias. Recorded over two days, American Ozymandias was the product of those long shelved 45's. Using the turntable as an instrument, Patrick sped up, slowed down, and warped the records as they were played back. The tone arm of the record player was jolted and lifted to create an unpredictable playback, one that depended on the level of warp in the old vinyls. What resulted was a vision of our country in a much different realm. The album evokes images of pastoral escape from urban populations, who are sequestered in their homes and are fearful of the future. The samples of classical music serve to create a cinematic sadness, like the realization that what you see in the movies is not real life, and that real life will never be as colorful or as expressive. American Ozymandias bids you to wander the landscapes of your mind. You may encounter childhood memories, strange memories, or nothing at all.

rgms, or the Rube Goldberg Machine of Semiotics and Symbols, is a curated collective of artists focusing on experimental releases.

r-g-m-s.com
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