"Exploded view of Love" - debut album from S's

Album release: “Exploded view of Love” by S’s

Release date: 13 October 2014

Label: G@#9

Nearly 20 years into the 21st century humanity persists despite ‘reality’ programming, climate doom warnings and predictions of humanoid uprisings, not to mention corporatized war, gun control debates and general insanity as usual. But in the narcissistic age of the ‘selfie’ and social media detachment, empathy appears on the wane. Where does that leave love? Is it nearing extinction? Are we? What does the future hold for love, and for human beings?

Beyond the replicant sector of the dystopian music industry, Los Angeles-based S’s [alias JEF 700S] transcend the parameters of “Experimental Noise,” “Minimalism,” “Synth Punk,” etc. The result is the debut concept album, Exploded View of Love, an abstract soundtrack that fathoms a Post-Reality/Post-Empathy/Post-Human future. JEF 700S sings/screams while transmitting alien waveforms, broken robot percussion and ectoplasmic skronk from a device called the 3dK.

Drawing equal inspiration from primal experimental noise [The Haters alias GX Jupitter-Larsen] and synthetic new wave [The Normal alias Daniel Miller], the free vocals of Patty Waters and Black Francis, and the future noir of THX 1138, Eraserhead, and Blade Runner, S’s explore how love transforms expression and vice versa. Navigating the guise of a deconstructed ‘band’ identity, 700S calls into question assumptions about human nature. Like love itself, the experience is alternately harrowing and humorous, pretentious and profound; the result morphs black and white polarity, leaving a subliminal fluorescent gray.

S’s debut full-length contains 10 tracks that average two minutes. “Unhaunted,” the single, points its cyborg finger at hypocritical Disneyland mines lurking within its all-too-human narrator. “Sex Machines” transposes famed Kraftwerk and James Brown memes, leaving the former uncharacteristically screaming for more and the latter cold, hold the sweat. “Rip Out Wires” takes a hard future look at online sex’s last kink. “Weapons Grade Love” proffers anti-war sentiment laced with a portent of off-planet fate, while “Pome” may be the first noise torch song. “Love Life” riffs on the themes of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” and “Tomorrow Never Knows,” building upon a single drum pad drone until it degrades into full-bore cacophony. Finally, the album’s title track abandons structural underpinnings prior to the three-minute mark then freefalls through deep space by way of a 20-minute Zen fade.

• Recorded, mixed and mastered by Matt Lynch at Mysterious Mammal in Los Angeles; November 2013 - March 2014
• Co-produced by S’s and Matt Lynch
• All sounds/songs written/performed by JEF 700S
• All noise/drum parts played by hand/not programmed