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CHRISTOPHER PENROSE, "AMERICAN JINGO"

Christopher Penrose is a thirty something Californian who has receiveddegrees in music composition at UC San Diego and Princeton University.He currently resides in Japan and works as a researcher, composer anddeveloper of audio software for Apple's Rhapsody operating system. Thetwo 20 and 24 minute tracks on this disc are likely products of thatsoftware, possibly his image to sound program. Penrose is obviouslymaking a statement on the Americanization of the world as the digipackfeatures clever artwork by him of Stars and Stripes flags with thestars replaced by other nations flags and corporate logos. The titlerefers to 'one who vociferously supports one's country, especially onewho supports a belligerent foreign policy', no doubt a phenomenon hehas experienced firsthand in Japan. The title track churns throughcountless processed samples and passages, far too many to detail oreven identify, but most are seemingly random snippets of sound andmusic interspersed with several spoken statements: "here is what youthink", "be a winner at losing", "I love my body", "she is America",etc. "MK/Ultra" features an 8 minute wavering synthetic drone, apanicked phone call to a radio station from a recently dischargedsoldier who believes aliens are among us, and a numbered list ofunusual life lessons and suggestions delivered in a digitized voice,culminating with "walk slowly, but kill that motherfucker if he triesto take your money" repeated ad nauseam. Penrose's compositions arejust plain odd, both in content and juxtaposition, but also interestingwith a well balanced mix of ambient, noisy, serious and humorousmoments. Though, without the artwork I'd be somewhat puzzled as to whatit's all about ...

 

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