Review Summary: Glitched electro-pop and smooth MIDI jams for the Vice City harbor
Production duo Joel Ford and Daniel Lopatin (the artists formerly known as Games) have been putting out woozy electro slow jams for a while now on several mixtapes and an EP. You could call Ford & Lopatin a side project, because they both put out music on other projects; Joel Ford on the chilled lite-rock of Tigercity and Daniel Lopatin on his brilliant electronic solo project Oneohtrix Point Never and (also brilliant) hypnagogic YouTube video channel sunsetcorp. While those projects are different in their own right, they all share a definite 80s-esque influence. Coming together on their debut LP, they replace the more hallucinated sounds of the Games That We Can Play EP and Heaven Can Wait mixtapes with a more concise and controlled sound, and manage to split their respected projects into a gooey center of glitched electro-pop and smooth MIDI jams.
Essentially Channel Pressure is concept album that takes place in the year 2082, a time when bands have been extinct for 70 years (so the 2012 prophecy only applied to bands), robots have taken over Hollywood, and the record industry is run by a super computer called The System II. It tells the story of teenage tech-head Joey Rogers, whose dream is to unplug from reality and jam in the style of his MIDI equipped ancestors. Soon after a gang of robo jocks beat him within inches of his life, he vows to never leave his bedroom again. The album cover depicts the moment when, in his bedroom, his TV starts to command him subliminally. You simply can't make that up.
While that theme is out-there, there isn't a conceptual burden on Channel Pressure, because it doesn't feel like you're listening to a concept album. Some themes are noticeable through the lyrics, but for example as Joey heads to the hospital after being beaten on "Emergency Room", the music remains light and upbeat. So I'll pretend like there isn't a concept and go about my review, because the concept isn't all that important in order to enjoy the album.
The music here is jagged and all over the place with different layers thrown on top of each other to create a cohesive sound. On tracks like "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)" and "Joey Rogers", the song starts at one place, goes off to somewhere completely different, and comes back. That kind of mixing is what gives Channel Pressure a truly electronic feel; any sound can take a completely different turn on command.
A few missteps hold the album back, like the awkward mixing on "Surrender", the interlude track "Green Fields" and closer "G's Dream" sound like messy electronic filler, and a few songs end too soon or aren't long enough (the title track, "World Of Regret"). Nonetheless those mistakes are small to the effortlessly catchy and groovy sounds throughout. Straight off the neon coated bayliner, waving the shores of Vice City and Miami Vice, Channel Pressure blasts through the speakers of the 80s midnight throwback hour. The DJs? Ford, Lopatin, and Joey Rogers himself.
