#Invisible cities album manual
The book puts forth the idea that in the advent of automation, humans will no longer need to do manual labor and a post-work Utopia is feasible.
#Invisible cities album full
“…once we abolish work, comrade…” is in reference to the prior album, Demand Full Automation, named after the book, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso, 2016) by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams. A city as a new form of community, not based on buildings but other networks.”
The need for big conglomerations of cities will go away, eventually-once we abolish work, comrade. I suppose if you want to apply a meaning to it… invisible communities, the future of urbanization, following up from automation. “Most of my stuff and titles are not particularly relevant to any track or anything, it’s just a kind of mode of thought at that particular time. You do not need to be a virtuoso, just good enough to express.Ĭrab spoke with me, remotely, about Invisible Cities from his home studio in Hastings, London, UK. An instrument is a tool like anything else, as the computer an instrument much like a guitar or saxophone. Again, Crab avoids the other elitist predilection inherent in instrumental music, ‘the proficient virtuoso’, and instead, works as if the instrument is nothing more than a vessel for expression. He insists he is not a musician, but certainly plays like one. Conversely, Crab does like musical instruments and has quite a few, including guitar, brass/wind instruments, and even gamelan percussion. In a way, Crab could be considered a producer informed by egalitarian ideals who eschews the elitism and expensive studios inherent in most electronic music and attendant financial barriers. Crab expresses disdain for hardware electronic synthesis and avoids machines with flashing lights. Invisible Cities is more a continuation of the stylistic modus operandi and all three albums may be considered companion works.Ĭrab’s distinct sound could be attributed to his composition process the electronics, for instance, are all virtual and the two main tools of choice are the opensource SuperCollider and the proprietary Ableton Live. But then, it may take some time for the world to catch up with Crab’s artistry. While Crab has collaborated as SunSeaStar on Fjaerland (not on label, 2007) with Andy Wilson in an electro-improvised experimental effort, his following releases After America (Fathom, 2015) and Demand Full Automation (Klangalerie, 2015) are all exquisitely crafted electro-instrumental works that probably belong at home on the likes of the ECM rather than underground music labels. The final BQ album, On Uncertainty (Klangalerie, 2001), foreshadows the music Crab would make as a solo artist, a blend of pure electro-synthesis and acoustic ethno-folk-instrumental merged into near orchestral cyborg creations. After several albums that spanned decades, BQ ceased with the untimely passing of guitarist, Miles Miles through suicide in 2002.
Perhaps BQ could be better characterized as ‘power electronics ethno-new-no-wave-industrial strength-electro-acid-gabber-techno-post-rock-neo-jazz-theater, and even that just seems to skim the surface. Bourbonese Qualk could be considered part of the UK ‘industrial scene’ of the 1980’s, but such reductions would be doing the music a disservice. Lucky for us, as the world would be poorer without his new work.įor the unaware, Crab is known for founding his two-decades long, multi-incarnation band, Bourbonese Qualk, in the late 70’s, in which he was always the hub. Much, if not all of the album was produced under covid lockdown, a virus Crab himself contracted and survived. Simon Crab has returned, after some years, with his latest excellent effort, Invisible Cities, on the Leeds, UK-based Space Ritual label ( review for it can be located here).
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