James Ferraro - Requiem for Recycled Earth (2019)

Presented as a “57 minute long opus into ecocide and planetary divorce”, Ferraro’s ‘Requiem for Recycled Earth’ strikes an elegiac nerve of soundtrack music that short circuits the difference between Philip Glass’ music for ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, the kind of schlocky tones you might expect on a Graham Hancock video about ancient civilisations, and some Hans Zimmer score for a wide-eyed Spielberg epic. It’s executed to the extent one might expect David Attenborough to crop up in one of its lulls, gently guilting listeners for living in the toxic run-off of his generation.

The 61 minute piece breaks down into 13 parts, conducting a spellbinding traverse from the primal, metallic noise and buoyant chorale of ‘Embryo’ thru to the bittersweet curdle of ’Spawn of Hate’, taking in spectacular FM synthesis sound designs with the transitions between ‘Omega Generation’ and ‘Cyber Seed’ or the perceptive depth to ‘Recycled Sky that show off a newly enhanced grasp of production nous, all while still allowing for that Mona Lisa smirk to his sound with the title and EDM nods in ‘Gaia Wept Effluent’.

We’re sure that the artist, presumably like most of us, is worried about climate change and the state of ‘Recycled Earth’. However, in his very particular way, Ferraro’s music here highlights an ambiguity between the objective reality and its mediated, subjective reflection, with a music that speaks to the impending, heightening drama of the situation, but also the saccharine melodrama of weepy emoji-adorned social media statuses (#Attenborough) and the well-meaning but ultimately piecemeal measures taken to avoid the inevitable.