Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol.1
Artist: Daniel Lopatin(under the name Chuck Person)
Subgenres: Eccojams
Release Date: 8/8/10
It's difficult for me to find the proper words to describe this record. So many things have been said about how it essentially coded the genre of Vaporwave right out the gate. It's legacy and importance bring with it such overwhelming pressure that it becomes tempting to rely on tropes and vague descriptors rather than discussing it as what it truly at the end of the day: a musical project made to be listened to. So, while I would find it disingenuous at best to not pay lip service to the immense influence of this record, I am of the opinion that not dissecting it in its own context would be equally inappropriate. So, I ask you to come back with me to an era where Vaporwave was not even a word in the internet dweller's lexicon. To a time prior to the explosion and steady decay of an internet subculture not typically seen on the scale or scope of this love affair of ours. To a moment where listen to Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 was little more than listening to one of the world wide web's many oddities in a sea of strangeness.
In its essence, Eccojams, like many other works of the genre it would assist in defining, is a criticism of pop culture and the post-capitalist society many of us are resigned to. Specifically, it dissects the relationship of the listener to the concept of nostalgia existing less as a state of wistful remembrance and moreso as a product to be spooned like gruel over a plate never allowed to be cleaned fully of its contents. Daniel Lopatin, taking the pseudonym Chuck Person, uses a combination of plunderphonics and audio collage to create something uniquely powerful in its messaging. By taking a selection of 80s pop songs, many of which can be difficult to take seriously in their own context due to how paint by numbers the pop hits of the era were, and stripping the gravitas, structure, and self-important romanticism from each sample. By simply focusing on these melancholic lyrics and samples by looping, slicing, and pitching them up and down at seemingly arbitrary rates, he manages to create something with more meaning in a single song than maybe every track he samples from has combined. The true brilliance of the transformations shines through once analyzing the initial release of the album.
In a delightfully subversive approach for the early 2010s, Eccojams was released exclusively on cassette. Keeping this context in mind elevates the album from a simple experimental music project that darkly recontextualizes its samples into a far more fascinating critique of the digital era that truly birthed it. It's easy to view the 80s or 90s as the decades that hold the most influence over the album's tone, but it is only through viewing the rise of digital music and rereleases and the artistic concerns that arise from it that Eccojams becomes its truest and fullest self. Certainly, the hyper-fixation of nostalgia predates the 2010s and even the 2000s to some degree, however individual copies of a work of art still held some level of mortality. A tape begins to wear after many plays, a compact disc becomes scratched, the grooves of a record struggle to keep the needle on its intended path. Yet, physical media began to play a decreased role in the lives of everyone and on the cusp of its final bit of widespread social relevance, Eccojams was released upon the world: a tape where the skipping and wear of repeated listens doesn't distract from the music presented, but enhances it. It's wanton acceptance of melancholic tones is an allusion to the mortality being stripped away from music in the era of endless and immortal releases. In the age of eternal life, Chuck Person's Eccojams longs to perish.
This fact reinforces the difficulty of writing this review and dissecting this album as a whole. Because Eccojams did not die, rather it became the new nostalgia. Certainly, I believe it contains far more value than its sources of considerably more fame and success do, but this leaves me in a difficult position. There is a morose perversion to keeping this beast alive, I feel. It carries these largely unspoken themes about a culture existing in a sort of vegetative state, alive, yet unable to interact with the world in a meaningful fashion. And, I feel the need to stress this, the position the album takes on the ceaseless use of art long after its time is decidedly negative. It is a sad, perhaps even cruel, thing that forces these songs to carry on infinitely with little to no hope of “retirement.” But can it truly be argued that the same thing has not begun to apply to Eccojams itself? I know I'd like to only focus on the album without any of its legacy, but so much of it seems to be at odds with the culture that surrounded it later. Perhaps these things should play more into my final rating for the record, but I will refrain from doing so on principle, though I think the topic is important to mention.
Still, it is difficult to not describe Eccojams as nihilistic even without the added burden of its legacy. From the lonely echoes of “B4” to the numb, repitious “A3” and all the way to the final moments of Side A where the music itself becomes little more than an anguished cacophony, Lopatin's genre defining record carries a mournful, destructive atmosphere despite the reverence many of these songs received in their heyday. There's a utilitarian callousness towards the songs sampled, treating them as malleable and exploitable as the entities that grind them into the ground for profit. Few projects in Vaporwave, or any other genre for that matter, transcend the sum of their parts with the ease and confidence of this record. That isn't to say that I think Eccojams is without fault. “B5” feels particularly redundant given the more interesting takes on plunderphonics on this record and, regardless of its popularity, “A2” tends to ride a line between fascinating earworm and annoying experiment, same with “B2.” Side B as a whole, despite having my favorite track, also feels less realized and more forgettable than Side A for my tastes, but I feel largely like these are nitpicks to an experience so genuinely captivating that dwelling on them risks missing the point. Eccojams is not some perfect masterpiece, but it creates a sense of identity in the exploration of identity's decay. It is a friend I don't expect to stay forever, but I want to cherish fully before they part.
45/50