YYU’s TIMETIMETIME&TIME and the Articulation of Music in the Modern Age

In the world of underground and experimental music, very few albums manage to come out at the ideal time in their cultural zeitgeist. YYU’s TIMETIMETIME&TIME, released in 2012 on the Kansas-based experimental music label Beer On the Rug, holds its case for being one of the most recent albums to beat those odds, and rightfully so- through a unique blend of analog and digital sound manipulation, &TIME breaks traditional boundaries and despite being crowded in between many of its Beer On the Rug contemporaries that fall under the Vaporwave/Hypnagogic Pop category, it manifests into its own being altogether. In a world where digital technology is advancing closer and closer towards the point of being almost organic, TIMETIMETIME&TIME manages to encapsulate the uncanny valley between human instrumentation and the digital replication of such processes.

Photo via YYU’s Facebook

YYU, the musical project of the Kansas-to-Chicago artist who goes by “B”, has always been an intriguing act to follow. While staying relatively anonymous by performing live shows and appearing in photos underneath white sheets reminiscent of what a child might wear if they wanted to be a ghost for Halloween, B has released a number of albums and EPs since 2010 that have peaked the interest of experimental music fans and critics alike. Beginning with releases such as Ghost Toast and MILKMILKMILKMILKMILKMILK that focused on vocals, the rapid plucking of an acoustic guitar, and digital chops/loops that border on the edge of both the Glitch and Footwork genres (among others), the YYU name began picking up a little bit of steam within a few internet circles. This somehow led to contact with Beer On the Rug, the Bandcamp and Tumblr-based experimental label that was stirring up quite a storm within the 2011–2012 time period of internet music. Following the cult popularity of Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1 (courtesy of Daniel Lopatin, known as Oneohtrix Point Never usually) in 2010 and the increase in popularity of sample-based music that followed, Beer On the Rug became one of the first labels to begin curating other artists that worked in a similar fashion with key releases such as Midnight Television, Napolian / Computer Dreams, New Dreams Ltd, and eventually what became known as “Vaporwave” with the now internet-famous Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus. With Vaporwave and Beer On the Rug becoming the talk of many internet music communities, Beer On the Rug saw a great opportunity to showcase YYU’s first release outside of their own bandcamp page, and thus TIMETIMETIME&TIME came to be in 2012.

札幌コンテンポラリー

With the prior Vaporwave releases that came before it, &TIME had to be something provoking in a similar way if Beer On the Rug wanted to keep the excitement around their label at a high point. For Vaporwave, the interest came in the form of how samples were manipulated and how the albums were close to the musical equivalent of collages, gathering pieces from numerous sources to create one over-arching theme based in nostalgia and a critical lens on capitalism/consumerism in many cases. Take for example the album 札幌コンテンポラリー by 情報デスクVIRTUAL, the release immediately prior to &TIME. Primarily based in 1980s and 1990s Muzak, Jazz, and RnB, 札幌コンテンポラリー looped the original life out of all of its source material, creating a new perspective on what could stand as a musical time capsule if left unedited and as a playlist of normal songs. Through this meticulous process, 情報デスクVIRTUAL’s work became something entirely new, despite none of the material being from the 21st Century at all- every saxophone lead pulls an existential dread to it, every hard cut at the end of a track begins to feel like a novelty, and ultimately what you hear is a great example of how music made through an entirely digital process can take on a life of its own.

What TIMETIMETIME&TIME managed to do is bridge the gap between that digital process and the heart of analog recordings. Samples and loops are still frequently utilized like its predecessors, but the context is different- the samples and loops are for the most part not taken from other sources, but instead YYU’s own recordings, making for a very unique experience as a listener. Though the original material has never been released unedited, it’s hard to imagine the tracks being anything else other than their unorthodox finished products, and that alone is something special. Guitar plucks, vocal clips, piano chords, percussion hits, and much more are looped and twisted to YYU’s desire, creating a very human form of sampling, especially in contrast to everything else that was beginning to bubble within the experimental scene at the time. Between the clearly computer generated loops of YYU’s craft playing at various RPMs and time signatures, you’re destined to hear at least a little bit of human quality.

Though artists like Aphex Twin and Múm have experimented in the past with acoustic sounds in a similar fashion with albums like Drukqs and Yesterday Was Dramatic — Today Is Ok, the way YYU was able to articulate the many parts of themselves on &TIME is groundbreaking and fresh for music as a whole. Within the context of &TIME and YYU’s music that came before it, there was a steadily growing reach towards connecting the human and the digital sides of their artistic expression, and coincidentally those two sides managed to meet at the right moment within the timeline of experimental music in the 2010s and B’s own personal growth as an artist. In an age where DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) are the easiest and most innovative way to get music created and recorded, we’re also still in a time period as humans where human instrumentation is still relevant and vital, and finding a way to authentically express one’s self through both sides of that coin is extremely complicated. In a way, YYU’s music is allowed to fully transcend any modern boundaries through being able to do so, and allows the listening experience to become participatory in both the listening experience and thinking about the creative process and themes behind the creation as a whole.

Though B has seemingly gone into hiding after their 2016 release Karaoke (other than some loose memos/demos uploaded to Bandcamp and SoundCloud), the impact of TIMETIMETIME&TIME and the rest of Beer On the Rug’s early catalog will forever exist as the stepping stones for 2010s experimental music as we know it today. As we continue to evolve into a society that relies more and more on technology to complete tasks and assist in the creation of art, music like YYU’s and their counterparts will also continue growing in relevancy, and the blend of analog and digital sound will continue growing more ambiguous to our ears and minds. With every growing listen, TIMETIMETIME&TIME becomes more of a reflection upon the state of technology in our artistic and regular lives today.

TIMETIMETIME&TIME Artwork