Another reissue of RVNG’s Freedom to Spend sub-label is the 1983 work by Marc Barreca, an album consisting of 13 songs whose cadences extend to form a pulse of a mechanized Western society of the 20th century, an uncanny yet highly immersive feeling of displacement.
Barreca was a member of Savant, a brilliant project of Kerry Leimer, emerging from 1980s Seattle. For those familiar with their releases, Music Works For The Industry is an exploration originating from the same area of influences, but with a very conceptual mixture of elements.
The first song, Community Life, arrays a playful synth accompanied by a seemingly reassuring female voice, typical of mid-century American commercials, establishing a space whose underlying insecurities Barreca is challenging. The same voice reappears on the Music Works For Industry eponymous track, featuring an industrial synth and percussion, midway into the album, shifting its meaning to other interpretations and journeys with mind-boggling itineraries.
Glass and Steel No 1 as well as Glass and Steel no 2 pinpoint the flow with a rhythm of minimal wave and hypnotic tribal instruments, creating a soundscape that induces the pacing of industrial machines. The saxophone on some of the other tracks has an intriguing appearance, opening another dimension on the already embroidered motifs.
To me it is difficult to listen to this album without the visual component that it triggers, as the album is contemporary with 1980s movements in conceptual art that addressed personal, social and political issues through the criticism of mass culture and advertising (among which Jon Baldessari and Barbara Kruger). The multilayered composition of the album evokes this era. Although operating in different realms, they sometimes intersect on the same frequencies.
Music Works For Industry is Freedom To Spend’s second release (a fantastic choice) and is out March 3 2017.
Tracklist:
1. Community Life2. Shopping
3. Hotcake
4. Glass And Steel No. 1
5. The Urge To Buy Terrorizes You
6. Glass And Steel No. 2
7. Nerve Roots Are Uncontrollable
8. Music Works For Industry
9. Georgetown
10. Organized Labor
11. Vs Chorus
12. Radio And Television
13. Church And State