Jane Remover’s third album is her most challenging, experimental, divisive, and exciting. With that being said, the first three descriptors may scare listeners away. Challenging, experimental, and divisive music takes some getting used to, but with something like this — so new and exciting, many can’t look away.
Revengeseekerz marks a new height for a kind of second wave of the melding together of (underground) rap with electronic. Formerly, popular hiphop would utilize sampling of electronic artists (i.e. Kanye West sampling Daft Punk for Stronger), but in the past couple years with artists like 2hollis, JPEGMAFIA, and Ecco2k, EDM production has found its way into the underground. As someone who prefers only the ambient side of electric, to see what EDM production is capable of in an album like this is notable.
On January 1st fo this year, Jane released JRJRJR a high energy, aggressive, violent therapy session, with assaulting production and lyrics that tag between “Rehearsing songs I hate in silver lake trying not to cry, then I step up off the stage and they don’t know I lost my mind” to “Can’t say I love you no more ’cause I hear it all the time” to “I might pull out a new face, change my name, then my city, You tried to take my drugs, good luck tryna fix me.” Identity is a major theme of this album. Pitchfork writes, “Nothing you know or think about Jane Remover will ever stay static. They can’t be bound to a genre, a scene, a geographic location, or even a name.”
Together with a single in february, this surprise release got many fans excited for what was to come.
On April 4th, the album was released, and expectations were exceeded. Pitchfork says of the production ““Hyper” and “maximal” aren’t enough to describe the extreme overload here. It reminds me of the way a computer with a low-level GPU shudders while straining to render something high-res.”
My favorite track of the album hosts an impossibly artificial breakdown, and lyrics confronting fame with the need for individual connection. The repeated line in the hook is “A thousand people scream my f—ing name. It don’t mean s— if I don’t hear you say it.”
Since this project’s release, many fans have begun using the term “chronically online production” to describe niche sound effects altered to become samples and visual texture, or trigger sounds to larger movements, buildups, or drops in the composition. Jane uses multiple vocal samples from video games. In the above song, Dreamflasher, at 0:21, Duke Nukem exclaims “These guys don’t stand a chance!”, and at 0:35, a line “Complete destruction by shadow force!”from Pokémon Battle Revolution can be heard. Additionally, Jane included a UI sound effect from Fortnite as a sort of post-ironic, not to be taken seriously easter egg in Fadeoutz. This sound is in a pool of other textures, but the term self defines that those who are too-online will be able to pick it out. (See below at (0:12) and throughout the song.)
This year has been extremely promising for experimental music, and Jane’s album Revengeseekerz marks what I would imagine “future music” can sound like — limitless and new. Jane’s production and performance shines as a techno beacon for the next generation of weird kids and visionaries to keep pushing the envelope in laptops and microphones.