Track B2 from "Apologize to the Future" (Perlon 126). Video by Bos&Lanting.
Korda’s latest release “Apologize to the Future” is the first album entirely devoted to the pivotal issues of the 21st century: climate change, economic inequality, intergenerational injustice, anti-natalism, the singularity, and human extinction. The album is electro-rap with techno and jazz influences, and packed with heartfelt, grief-stricken rhymes sung by a robotic choir. The central theme is that future generations—should they exist—will bitterly resent us for leaving them a wrecked planet. Korda excoriates the selfishness and solipsism of present generations, and describes the album’s “militant existentialism” as an urgent antidote to the post-truth era’s “alternative facts.”
According to Korda, “Mass extinction is underway, so it’s time to get past denial and move on to acceptance. People need to grow up and face reality, or we simply won’t be around.” A takeover of earth by sentient machines is also conceivable, and in Korda’s vision “they couldn’t do much worse.” Our only hope of a habitable planet is to swiftly rein in our exploding population and consumption, by embracing non-procreation and limits to growth. Otherwise we’ll be reduced to “a thin layer of oily rock,” a bleak reference to the earth’s most severe extinction event, the Permian-Triassic.
The entire album is written in complex polymeter, meaning many different odd time signatures are used simultaneously. Korda pioneered the use of complex polymeter in techno in the mid-1990s, and developed custom music composition software in order to master this technique. The vocals were sung by a robotic choir. Two of the tracks—the title track and “Overshoot”—will feature music videos.
It’s my future on the line
While you bitches shop and dine
I didn’t ask to be born
Into a disaster porn
Remember the film “Titanic”?
How that rich dude was such a dick?
People were glad to see him drown
They’ll feel the same this time around
Up in first class, champagne flows
No one says, what everyone knows
Into the deep they’ll soon descend
Party, until the bitter end
Overshoot
My future’s on the line
Overshoot
While you shop and dine
Overshoot
The end begins
Overshoot
No one wins
The wealthy play at being tough
Private islands won’t be enough
Hungry people do what they must
Mansions will be quick to combust
Ostriches in fancy headphones
Canceling inconvenient moans
Eyes averted from evidence
Full speed ahead with decadence
Polar ice caps shatter and melt
Securely fasten your seat belt
Impact implies too late to turn
Nothing to do but crash and burn
[chorus]
Overshoot does not compute
Evolution will now reboot
We’ll never know how or when
The tree of life will rise again
Overshoot, the aftermath
So beloved by psychopaths
Civilization goes up in smoke
Intelligent life is a cruel joke
[chorus]
***********************************
All music and lyrics by Chris Korda