CHRIS KORDA - APOLOGIZE TO THE FUTURE (Official Music Video)

Track A3 from “Apologize to the Future“ (Perlon 126). Video by Will Benedict. CGI: Malte Zander. Lyrics: Download: Vinyl: 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.