Day 96: Total Control — Laughing at the System
I just wrote two days ago that there were many Australians who have appeared on this hallowed Medium account over the last 14 weeks. If there was one thing they had in common, it was an decent but ultimately derivative indie rock. Total Control aspires to something more malleable and fluid, employing a musical approach that finds the means it needs to justify its ends rather than vice versa. As a result, Laughing at the System is a wide-ranging, nihilistic affair that serves as one of the more creatively satisfying ways to close the book on a year where the absurd and dystopian became horrifyingly routine.
Across the eight tracks that span a mere twenty minutes, the most dominant theme is a sardonic sense of humor, more a defensive reaction to the incomprehensible nature of our present moment than any sincere gesture. As the E/LP’s title implies, suggests, there’s plenty of bone-dry laughter, from the implied guffaws of those who profit from a broken world on the two eponymous tracks, to the viscerally vapid guffaws of “Luxury Vacuum” at the unraveling threads of society’s fabric. There’s also dystopian fairy tale about what sounds like a silicone-based Soylent variant that “radiate[s] pleasure, the cleanest meal” delivered by a “future milkman”, and follow-up track “Future Cops” comes through like a scrambled advertisement for late capitalism. Its abstractions lend the lyrics more of a poetic than a political feel, polishing societal rot into postmodern art.
Their genre-agnostic approach heightens the dysphoria, with Total Control treat convention and consistency as little more than something to laugh at. With its industrial clanging, “Laughing at the System pt. 1” emits the sound of a structure breaking down, or a metaphorical spanner in the works. The tunes move through cycles of wobbly post-punk, uneasy retro-futuristic synth, and loosely-structured noise. Even in peaceful moments, like on “Cathie and Marg”, the lack of a discernible rhythm creates a vague climate of unease.
I’m also reminded of Fat White Family on some of these songs here, if you swapped in the Charles Manson fascination for a more updated and less murderously misanthropic set of references. As someone whose willed the Fat Whites to take over the world, consider it a compliment.
Overall, Total Control does whatever the hell they want here, and it almost works out better than it should. I didn’t expect to enjoy such a loosely-organized set of songs from this gang of Australians. Maybe it’s just an accent that makes their words and work seem so scathing, but I think their gleefully sarcastic deconstruction of the systems and structures we cherish has a lot more to offer than maybe even they realize.
This is Day 96 in my 100 albums in 100 days series, where I review a new album or EP I haven’t heard in full before every day through December 31st. Check out yesterday’s post or see the full archives for more.
