Review Summary: recommended if you like leaving the TV on at 4 AM
In a world of conveniently disposable media, the idea that something must process over a long period of time has been treated like an after-thought and discarded. There is no need to become attached to art that at most, will stick with a person for a week or so. The internet, in all its forms, has given us the freedom to not have to pick and choose our devotion, and instead whimsically torrent and deviate our choices in media without consequence. By using copious samples and establishing a concrete re-appropriation of this type of content, Chuck Person aka Daniel Lopatin serves a reminder about expendable culture symbols and the idea of an hyperactive society inundated yet loving that status. In his mind, there is no relic too valuable, no artistic artifact too sacred to be removed from its previous context, and his work here reflects that.
In this regard,
A.D.D. Complete is the manifestation of a technology-addled conscious going insane. Easy listening remnants are turned into chaotic mash-ups, the sentimental purpose of those songs thrown out the window to construct an entirely new amalgamation. Lopatin himself has referenced the concept of "interactive fiction" to describe what he creates, most notably with his Oneohtrix Point Never alias. However, the opposite may hold true for this collection. Rather than interacting with
A.D.D. Complete, the listener is constantly thrown uncontrolled sounds of which try to evoke any type of emotion, but ends up belying a restlessness that over the course of the record, emerges as a sort of infinite malaise.
It goes without saying then, that what is established by this deranged assortment of media just ends noisy and turbulent. Withdrawn from the conventional standards of music, it's easy to see the vision and inventive pastiche that Lopatin crafts becoming merely observed as background commotion, as though one can't find
A.D.D. Complete illustrative of their thoughts and beliefs. Especially when compared to
Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1, which is a much more immediate release,
A.D.D. Complete's static bedlam can be off-putting. Yet beneath a superficial listen, both LPs have much more in common than previously recognized. Both gratuitously use repetition as an artistic device, grating the particular sample onto the listener, whilst slightly altering the process each time. Their usage of the same pieces manufacture the concept that they serve as companion pieces, intended to complement each other's sonic differences. It's then compulsory that if one hears a singular Chuck Person production, they must hear the other.
A curious concoction no doubt, Chuck Person's
A.D.D. Complete is as transfixing as it is bemusing. More akin to noise records than anything previously distributed in the world of plunderphonics, its mystique is cast by the situational magnifier cast in every moment. Nothing can be branded as unique, the product of a vast collection of dated vestiges held in stasis. Pressed and filtered, this notion of re-purposing serves as constant indication of how we, as the public, consume and experience media, and wherein this type of music is concerned, it becomes much more hypnotizing as a result of this context.
A.D.D. Complete doesn't aim to enthrall consistently, but its hyper-explored framework serves as a mesmerizing ordeal nonetheless, and is definitely worth any music aficionado's time.
