James Krivchenia.
Blood Karoake.
New York: Reading Group, 2022.
LP.
New and Sealed.
We're so excited to be releasing Blood Karaoke, the new record from our long-time friend and frequent collaborator, the brilliant James Krivchenia.
Blood Karaoke is composed mostly from hundreds of tiny samples of unwatched YouTube videos found through random online generators (such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations, video game walkthroughs, old local news clips, etc), mangled midi fed into Krivchenia’s rig of synthesizers and pedals, and then meticulously layered and collaged. Work on Blood Karaoke began in summer of 2019 while Krivchenia was living in New Mexico and was finished in his Los Angeles home in April of 2020. “It was a very iterative, long process,” says Krivchenia of creating the album. “Lots of editing and putting together little moments or 10 second chunks with lots of samples. The music was conceived to be a somewhat unbroken 40 minute long composition and I think of the singles as excerpts.” Opening track “Emissaries Of Creation” encapsulates the chaotic, cyber world of Blood Karaoke. Driving through a near-constant barrage of sound and information, the album passes through zones of hardcore techno, poptimistic kitsch cruisers, glitched out quasi-grooves, and deeply weird YouTube ambience. Blood Karaoke is a private dance record appropriate for the overstimulated weirdness of our world.
