Cassette Review: Unfollow "Zero Likes"

[$8 CAD // Edition of 70 // https://unfollow.bandcamp.com/album/zero-likes]

You can thank social media in the year 2015 for having me know what "Unfollow" and "Zero Likes" means.   Isn't it strange to think that back when I was a kid you couldn't "unfriend" somebody?  You had to go to school and face them every day, man.  Now you just click a button and they're dead to you.  It's that kind of harsh reality that has made this current society more about numbers than people.   That and the fact that you could judge music (and people do) based upon how many Facebook likes your page has, how many followers you have on Twitter and how many "likes" and "favorites" your posts get.   Strange times indeed, people.  Strange times.

"Zero Likes" begins with electronic beats and there are whoa's coming through in circles.  Laser synth urgency brings about steady beats just as well and I'm hearing a bit of "Alias" in here.  Car door dings come out in the beats and then this just turns into an all out dance party.    Often, the songs tend to feel as if they're on the verge of going into something from Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine".    Synth bass beats come out and then the rhythm begins to sing.   Yes, I've checked every aspect of this music and it's not the bass, synth or anything else I can put my finger on so I can only conclude that the rhythm has in fact taken on its own voice.

Sonar dings are added in and then it gets quiet so it is reduced to only those dings.   It takes a turn for the ambient and there are sounds of footsteps possibly, perhaps a knocking and then an Oriental garden feel.   Side B opens with this court room type of drama, such as  "Law & Order" or when the people come out on a court show on television, but I'm not sure exactly and it is quite a change from the way Side A ends.   Whirrs build into slipstream beats as a marching beat comes out next in loops.     Though there is a driving beat it is fairly moderate.

The music grows more serious, then louder and faster as well.   It goes into something that almost reminds me of "Doctor Who", as it has that sci-fi sort of feel to it, and then ooonce ooonce cymbals take over.  Synth beats join this as all as we form a pattern which takes us to the end of not only Side B but "Zero Likes" on the whole.   Wow, what a ride it has been through these strange, strange modern times.

As much as I feel like social media and the internet in general is turning society into a bunch of robots without feelings, the fact remains that as this cassette reminds me of the 21st Century it is a happy one because I just look at how far music has come and how someone would not have made something like this when I was growing up.  (Hey, when I was growing up the music that sounded like the future is now known as "new wave")  The future is here, people, and as long as it keeps producing music of this proportion I will not fight it.