The stock photo of a white soldier talking into their iPhone protrudes noticeably on the album cover of the newest project from Nicolas Jaar, under his Against All Logic (A.A.L.) moniker. This forced intrusion feels culturally aligned in an era where conflict with Iran boils to the brink, congress impeaches the President, and an out-of-control virus rages through China threatening global systems. Fittingly, the title of the album, Against All Logic: 2017-2019, feels appropriate in the current period through which we’ve lived through a Trumpian distortion of the American Dream.
The album aligns sonically with the album cover and reflects the current cultural moment. Whereas A.A.L’s last album 2012-2017 was filled to the brim with nostalgic house beats and funky undertones, 2017-2019 takes on a crunchy, industrial, techno-based tone. Harsh noise samples abound and some tracks sound like a kid found their way into the pots and pans cabinet and had an impromptu drum session. Eerie synths fill in the higher register, and the resulting sound has a much darker feeling than Jaar’s earlier work as A.A.L.
The album begins with ‘Fantasy,’ which samples the Beyonce and Sean Paul song ‘Baby Boy.’ Paul’s voice is distorted to the point that I thought I was actually hearing a new Future verse at first. ‘With An Addict’ features soothing, ambient synths over a light, almost breakcore-esque drum pattern. The only credited feature on the album comes from, Lydia Lunch, an experimental artist whose work covers everything from no-wave punk to theatre performance. On ‘If You Can’t Do It Good, Do It Hard, Lunch angrily says “If you can’t beat them, kill them, if you can’t kill em, fuck em, if you can’t fuck em, kill them, if you can’t do it good, do it hard,” over a grating, industrial beat. The track swells to a manic peak that feels reflective of our own collective anxiety. ‘Alarm’ sounds like you would expect it to, and the industrial techno beat hopes to wake mankind up to face the reckoning from our past decisions. ‘Penny’ might be my favorite track on the entire album, and it has a constant beat that slowly morphs over its seven-minute runtime, incorporating a number of ethereal samples and synths fill in the rest of the otherworldly atmosphere.
I would be remiss to talk about this album without mentioning the EP that Jaar released in the week prior. While it stands as a separate project in its own right, it fits thematically and sonically with the tracks found on 2017-2019. The standout of the two-track EP is ‘Alucinao’ which features Estado Unido and FKA Twigs. This marks the second time that Jaar has worked with Twigs, following his production on the celestial song ‘Mary Magdalene.’ Alucinao, which translates roughly to hallucinate, contains some of the more surreal lyrics I’ve heard in recent memory. Unido sings, “Se quiebran como vidrio, estamos alucinao” which translates to “the bodies break like glass, we are hallucinating.” The track feels more like a bad dream than our current reality.
2017-2019 comes at crucial point in our current timeline, reflecting worries about global instability, inequality, environmental degradation, and the host of other problems that dwell in the back of our minds. It is a byproduct of this era and the harshness of the production reflects that throughout. The brash distortion bristles with a courageous ferocity that we will need as we face all of our current and future problems.
Score: 9/10
Favorite Tracks: If You Can’t Do It Good Do It Hard, Alarm, Penny, You (forever)
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