“Max Normal” by Aerial2k employs multiple layers of synth and other electronic sounds to craft a song that sounds like the soundtrack to a time lapse construction across years of a suburban neighborhood. Is the title of the song meant to be someone’s name? An opinion/observation offered. Either way one can hear the steady pace of the percussion while tones carry on as if manifesting tiny bits of the buildings and other features of the neighborhood to be while highlighting how strange yet aspirational that sort of project might be while also calling into question how “normal” it is even though such communities are held up as the epitome of “normal” both in the positive sense and in the connotation more pejorative. The track itself, though, feels meditative like taking some time out to build an ideal community one can go back to in order for relaxation away from the hustle of work life, one’s own private haven and sanctuary, which was one of the goals of early suburbs and who can blame anyone for wanting that. These days it all doesn’t mean much with the changing ways people work and drastically increasing income inequality and the complete erosion of a meaningful middle class. So in some sense this song is a sort of sonic cultural archaeology that manifests a type of utopia and the best aspects of these strange social and economic phenomena of the suburb before the world definitely took a turn for the worse thus the source of its curiously soothing aesthetic. Listen to “Max Normal” on YouTube and follow Aerial2k at the links below.
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