CORY STRAND "CULTURAL SUBORDINATION" 2CDr (AOW 32)

I've fought a losing war against pop music all my life.  When I was younger I used to wear the elitist cloak proudly, wrapping myself in assertions that Napalm Death were better than anything that anyone else was listening to and that the Dead C were all you needed to know about emotional expressionism.  Several years later, I read Alan Licht's book An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn and my mind, along with my preconceptions about popular music, were sufficiently blown apart.  Licht wrote that "Peter Cetera wasn't the enemy," an affirmation that all music has some sort of value to it regardless of your personal feelings about it.  Pop may cater to the obvious, but the obvious exists in our collective subconscious, no matter how much we deny it.
"Cultural Subordination" is my attempt to subvert and pay tribute to this anti-radical form of crowd control.  Every track here was sourced from elements of Ellie Goulding's track "Lights," as infectious a piece of hypercolor ear rot as I've ever heard.  There's a yearning and desperation buried in the track that appeals to me, and I've tried to bring those more severe emotions out in my treatments of the track.  It's astounding to me just how far out these reworks can go, and how something so seemingly tepid can yield such grotesque, beautiful, and ultimately polarizing sounds.  Everything you want is here, if you're willing to go deep enough.
Ellie Goulding is not the enemy.
Released by Altar Of Waste in a DVD case, in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.
Portions of this record can be streamed at my Bandcamp page:
www.corystrand.bandcamp.com

-Cory Strand

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