Everything Everything – Raw Data Feel
On their sixth studio album Everything Everything turn to the world of AI, offering up a record of deepfaked pop
For a band so obsessed with technology (in both practical and existential terms), it follows that art-rock nerds Everything Everything would turn to the beguiling/horrifying world of artificial intelligence to help craft the lyrics and visuals for album number six, Raw Data Feel.
Which is not to say there isn’t heart here – the quartet’s oft-explored themes are out in force (late capitalism, tech and social media disquiet) – but the album is certainly on the weirder end of the EE spectrum. Given they fed an AI such choice morsels as Beowulf and the entire Ts & Cs of LinkedIn, this should be no surprise.
Production, too, leans even more electronic. Teletype, Bad Friday and Cut UP! are dance-ready bangers, boasting an unnerving jauntiness at odds with some of the lyrics (see 'How did I get this blood all over me?' on Bad Friday). Shark Week is perhaps the most surreal ('Is that Kevin in the car? / He's a cabbage likе me'), but struts out with a hip-hop backbeat like everything’s supposed to make sense. It’s deepfaked pop.
That’s the record in a nutshell: we’re approaching near total automation like the 'This Is Fine’ dog meme, humanity already wilfully, blissfully symbiotic with machinedom. At least we get another great Everything Everything album out of it.
Listen to: Shark Week, Cut UP!