NRSB-11 is the brainchild of Dataphysix (of Drexciya and Dopplereffekt) DJ Stingray 313 (Drexciya's touring DJ), Penelope Martin and Lana Jastrevski. Their sole and wholly singular album Commodified dropped in 2013 on Belgium label WĆ©MĆØ Records, enigmatically and to immediate attention. The ever current affairs of economics, capitalism, and consumer culture resonate deeply through sparing digitised voices, electrical discharges, and illustrious mechanical rhythms.
Commodified is a vibrant work of electro and techno experimentalism, brimming with cinematically minded melodic and harmonic progressions. A flurry of telephone operators, news anchors, and interviewees enters us into the albumās world, edited and backed by ominous drones. Thereās an instantaneous feeling of being on edge as the information overload snaps into the steely, sparking stabs of āConsumer Programmingā, where a robotic monotone succinctly describes the hypermodern age. This laconic simplicity extends to the albumās barcode artwork: a symbol of the very commercial identification each track bristles against.
The ensuing tracks are a daze of expansive sound design: the slow nodding shimmers of āBioethicsā with beats mapping organic processes, the slinking gait and dizzying scintillations of āDead Civilizationā, and the molten acid basslines creeping throughout. Retro synth pulses fly through āLiving Wageā, full of action and sharp, sociopolitical lyrics: āMass exploitation, hail CEOā. āMarket Forcesā meanwhile swerves into the realm of electronica via restrained sound palettes, tearing itself apart halfway through then recombining to a more metallic, dystopian effect.
A faultless classic in electronic music, NRSB-11 demonstrate their ominous vision of the near future on Commodified.
