12 Songs: Future Primitive

In the modern musical lexicon, the term “progressive” has become something of a dirty word, a crude umbrella term used to designate a lower, primitive art form. Am I the only one who finds this unfair? Since when are thirty-piece drum kits, fretless guitars, and flute solos considered uncool?

A twelve-year-old does a 540 in a wave pool wearing footstraps: he gets half a million likes on Instagram and an endorsement deal with a cryptocurrency exchange whose name I can’t even properly pronounce. But when a musician applies the same ethos, they’re regarded as clowns. Despite hours of dedication, attention to detail, and studio professionalism, society tosses their entire discography aside, damning it to the deepest and most obscure corners of youtube, where it will sit for all eternity, only to be truly appreciated by a particular breed of disgruntled, middle-aged sound engineer. And somewhere, every sixty seconds, a high school-aged “prog” appreciator gets stuffed in a recycling bin by his thrash metal contemporaries.

Yes, that’s a great idea - lets suppress experimentation and discourage technical mastery. On that note, why don’t we just let the computers do all the work? Aren’t we doing that already? — Jackson Todd

Listen to 12 Songs: Future Primitive on Spotify here.

Listen on Apple Music here.

[artwork: Man at the Crossroads, Diego Rivera]