When do politics become so embroiled that they render art and the
enjoyment one gets from art useless? Conversely, is it possible for music to
overcome real-world problems as a transcendent measure? Unfortunately, black
and white answers are fleeting – politics blows and global problems (read:
non-first-world problems that you probably don’t think about ever) persist.
Music is good, and it makes you feel good, but it’s a sedative, a narcotic.
It’s impossible to reconcile one in conjunction with the other.
Gaffe of a Lifetime tries, though – oh, how he tries! And he does it as
only a young man from Connecticut can, with lo-fi house he’s dubbed “new
basement swing” in the form of a cassette EP. It’s a great sound coming from
Alexandre Louis, the lad behind the tunes. In fact, side A is pretty heavy on
the platform vibe, with the title track a post-ambient club tripper that
samples President Obama saying the titular line. The message can be read either
way, as a humble thank you to the soon-outgoing president or an indictment of
the entire system. And “325am Hostage” might suggest the latter more than
anything – it’s a tense banger, that’s for sure.
Political discourse, meet your musical side-B counterpart. “That
Basement Swing” announces GOAL’s mission statement, and he follows it with
“Don’t Play This at the Club,” an electro-cannonball that who cares if you play
it at a club or not, everybody’s alienated by something now anyways, and I’ve
never set foot inside a “club,” so what does it even matter what I think?
Alexandre Louis, whether he’s trying to be political or not, or whether saying
anything means anything in a post-rational landscape, at least knows how burrow
electronic earworms in your skull, because that’s what My Fellow Americans is: a virus implanted through your ear canals
into your memory that will grow and absorb focus until all you can think about
is Gaffe of a Lifetime. That’s when the true revolution will come.
--Ryan Masteller