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Am Not ‎* The Developing World (cd 2017)

In 2015 Unrest Productions release the superb Am Not album “Unpunished”. There appeared to be an earlier album (“First Morbid Vibrations” 2012 Unrest) which is descent, but not as good as “Unpunished”. Now Tesco picked up Am Not to release the third full-length.

I do not remember how I learned of this project, but with the previous and the latest album, this project rapidly rises to being one of my favorite projects. Tamon Miyakita combines elements that I enjoy in music. It is dark, structured, emotional, but most of all, he seems to have something to say. Just music for the sake of music (or anti-music in the case of noise) can be entertaining, but I like it a lot when the artist seems to be concerned with more than just music. Am Not actually has lyrics, lengthy ones too sometimes. Not just the shouted one-liners of many similar artists, but lyrics that make me wonder what the artist means with them. A track opening with a sample of a man telling about him torturing black people, ending with “Leopold reigns today” (on the previous album), a stance against racism, as Leopold was a Belgian king who had a terrible regime in the then-colony Congo?
The new album seems to have more “1984” type lyrics, complaining about the almighty bureaucratic system that is more powerful than politics and a “child” that is summoned to “come home” with what appears to be a dangerous regime.

I do not mind that the lyrics are not ‘clear’ or even if there appears to be something there that I agree with or not, but this underused element of extreme electronic music definitely adds something for me.

The music then. Just as the previous album the music is pretty dense and noisy. The vocals are more often heavily distorted compared the previous album. Some tracks are more power electronics in sound, others somewhat less extreme, but “The Developing World” is certainly no easy-listening. It is abrasively dark though and, I said it before, I have a thing with extreme music with vocals. The new Am Not is, once again, pretty damn good!

Links: Am Not, Tesco

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