Careful, drinking this much coffee could start some Internet feuding. I know. Photo from the artist.
Enjoy it, because this will be about the only time something this weird racks up hundreds of thousands of SoundCloud plays.
Yes, it’s Toronto’s Joel Zimmerman, aka deadmau5, uploading this week to SoundCloud. 432 is an ode to 432 Hz, with horror movie-spooky sounds oozing over the top. “DAT KICK DOE” from earlier this year is a raunchy, thumping distorted loop. (Back story: this sonic horror is how deadmau5 trolls. Well, I’m all for sound as a way to settle feuds.)
This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One, it’s a return to the service after he deleted it – a major exodus, given he had 33 million plays when he shut it down. Now, the artist has his own streaming service: live.deadmau5.com allows him to control what content he releases and charging US$5 for webcasts, downloads, and lots of other stuff. It seems it could be a sign of things to come – better to charge every fan five bucks if you can rather than wait for five bucks to show up from the likes of Spotify, and much better to have control over how things are released.
Two, well … I really like this weird stuff, if only because we get to grab the popcorn, sit back, and watch as deadmau5 fans try to work out what the Hell is even happening. The account name continues to involve trolling – “f***mylife”. (Good to know that Mr. Zimmerman will be the always-negative antidote to the relentlessly sunny disposition Paris Hilton has brought to DJing, and the obsessive cheeriness of social media in general.)
But maybe the funniest bit about this is that deadmau5 can put his name on any bizarre bit of audio content and his fans are into it – and people imagined EDM fans wouldn’t get into experimental sounds. There are actually some nice odd bits on his subscription site, as well, even if a huge amount of the photo collection is devoted to … expensive cars. Yeah, f***yourlife, I guess.
Next, we’ll have to see whether artists with names this big stick to public streaming sites or build their own – for a deadmau5, building a unique streaming site seems as obvious as flying private jet instead of commercial. And — yes, so long as a generation of EDM fans become increasingly immune to really weird noises, maybe there’s hope that EDM will morph back into IDM, after all.
Electric Chinscratch Festival? Let’s make this happen, people.