. 'Adventures in Green Foot Printing' Released: October 4, 2011. 'Earth Minutes' Released: October 18, 2011 Far Side Virtual is the a by the American, released on October 25, 2011 by the. First conceived as a series of, the album marked Ferraro's transition from his previous recording approach to a sharply produced, aesthetic that deliberately evokes sources such as, corporate, and outdated computer. The album has been interpreted as engaging with themes such as, disposable, 1990s, advertising, and musical.
Far Side Virtual was met with polarizing but generally positive reviews, with most critics commending its conceptual underpinnings and noting its ambiguous relationship to its subject. It was named album of the year by UK magazine, a decision which was met with contention from some journalists and readers.
The album has since been cited as one of the original releases and catalysts of, an -based electronic music that covers much of the same sonic and conceptual territory. James Ferraro (pictured in 2012)'s musical style changed to a clearer and more electronic sound for Far Side Virtual, while continuing to explore themes from his previous work. Ferraro explained that his original idea had been to release the sixteen compositions on Far Side Virtual as a set of downloadable, but wanted the songs to have the impact of a complete album; he felt that few would want to purchase the music as a set of ringtones. Ferraro said, 'Hopefully these songs will be made available for ringtones and the album will be condensed into ringtone format so the album won't be the centerpiece, it will just dissipate into the infrastructure. The record is just the contained gallery space of these ringtone compositions.' Ferraro said that listeners using the songs from Far Side Virtual as ringtones was the realization of Far Side Virtual as 'a installation'.
Ferraro said, 'When I made Far Side Virtual, I was really into. I lived in for a year and I used to hear to kids listening to instrumentals on their phones, rapping over the top. I love the way that sounds: the texture of super compressed digital beats coming out of a cellphone and just a voice over it. Far Side Virtual was inspired by hearing music like that.' Composition. The first single released from the album, 'Adventures in Green Foot Printing', is an example of Ferraro's use of clean production and keyboards inspired by 1990s era computer sounds.
Problems playing this file? The sources of most of the album's sounds were described as 'perversely commonplace' by Zac Corrigan of, and include the log-in sound and interacting with the listener. Far Side Virtual was retrospectively tagged as one of the most influential releases to, a genre mostly spread via the Internet and identified by its adoption of dated electronic 'corporate mood music' and ambiguously ironic attitude. Ferraro created Far Side Virtual with the audio software, which brought out the 'cheap digital sound' he desired, and called it a 'rubbery plastic symphony for, dedicated to the '. He said, 'This is ringtone music meant to be experienced on the medium, the.' Ferraro frequently described it as a musical of the 21st century, specifically the year it was released. Andy Battaglia compared the feeling of the music to the online, the, and the work of experimental filmmaker.
Adam Harper of Dummy called it a ' of a kind of music you never knew you knew existed: techno-capitalist stock promotional music for the era of the personal computer. Each track is bristling with the promise of a world of possibilities waiting behind the screen for your double-click, and evokes a time when we were much less familiar with and cynical about the virtual world technology has brought us into.'
Bomb writer Luke Degnan wrote, 'This is what Far Side Virtual does for 45 minutes—it reminds the listener that these sounds were born digitally and will die digitally. This is a digital album for a digital age.'
Electronic musician praised the album for its unaltered, standard sound. Commenting on the production style, Joseph Stannard of wrote, 'In contrast to the audio soup of Ferraro's earlier recordings, these tracks have a spacious, architectural feel that recalls, and.' Critics noted that the album abandons the veneer of noise that coats Ferraro's previous releases while retaining—and reimagining—the form and ethos of. Ferraro said 'it's still in the tradition of noise.' According to magazine writer Luke Degan, the album is unlike the 'reverbed-out, feedback-laden noise music' of Ferraro's earlier music, but instead represents the noise of the 'digital age.' A Fact writer said, 'there's no distortion, no tape-hiss, no obvious underground signifiers.
but this new cleanness and clarity to the Ferraro aesthetic hasn't diminished the hallucinatory power of his music. the songs will terrify you to the core even as they evoke the soundtrack of a third-tier or a forgotten B-side.'
Another critic said, 'while Ferraro is interested in issues of distance and impermanence, there is no lo-fi fuzz or warm nostalgic haze to temper how flat and ugly the music he's referencing on Far Side Virtual is.' Described the album as 'nihilistic easy-listening.'
Like Ferraro's previous albums Night Dolls with Hairspray and Last American Hero, Far Side Virtual explores American culture of the present and recent past. A writer from French music blog The Drone described Far Side Virtual as a inspired by the ideas of and from the. Harper wrote, 'Up until Far Side Virtual, many of James Ferraro's albums were impressionistic lo-fi portraits of bygone eras – perhaps on Far Side Virtual he decided to represent the present as is and then let nature take its course, over time, and do the aging for him. Returning to it in ten or twenty years time, we might discover that it was ironically a victim of its own futurist acceleration, and is now about as up-to-date as a ten-year-old carton of milk.'
English music critic said that while the album's song titles allude to the 21st century, the album is sonically reminiscent of the 1990s, and that Ferraro shares interest in that time period with contemporaries like. Reynolds wrote, ' Far Side Virtual seems to undertake an archaeology of the recent past, conjuring the onset of the internet revolution and 90s optimism about information technology. But that recent past could equally be a case of 'the long present' in so far as the digiculture ideology of convenience/instant access/maximization of options now permeates everyday life and is arguably where faint residues of utopianism persist in an otherwise gloomy and anxious culture.' Artwork and title The album's front cover displays a pair of displaying abstract designs (with one placed as a head on a tuxedo), laid over a low-resolution image of in as viewed in.
Explaining the title in an interview, Ferraro said: Far Side Virtual mainly designates a space in society, or a mode of behaving. All of these things operating in synchronicity: like ringtones, flat-screens, theater, cuisine, fashion, sushi. I don't want to call it ',' so I call it Far Side Virtual. If you really want to understand Far Side, first off, listen to, and secondly, go into a frozen yogurt shop.
Afterwards, go into an store and just fool around, hang out in there. Afterwards, go to and get a gift card. They have a book there on the history of Starbucks—buy this book and go home.
If you do all these things you'll understand what Far Side Virtual is — because people kind of live in it already. Release Far Side Virtual was announced in May 2011 as Ferraro's first album on the Hippos in Tanks label.
The label first released the digital (EP) Condo Pets, which was intended as a preview of the sound of the forthcoming LP. Karen Ka Ying Chan, writer for Dummy, identified the theme of the two releases as Ferraro's 'fascination of the surreal side of American living'. Amber Bravo of said Far Side Virtual had been 'billed somewhat as a cultural critique as told through MIDI-synths.' Ferraro's satirically written announcement for the album read, in part, 'All the proceeds from Far Side Virtual are going towards my facial reconstructive plastic surgery. My new face will be fashioned after 's satellite queen,. And you will be able to see it live in concert on the Far Side Virtual World Tour.'
The tracks 'Adventures in Green Foot Printing' and 'Earth Minutes' were released as in advance of the album. Critical reception Professional ratings Aggregate scores Source Rating 77/100 Review scores Source Rating 7/10 7.6/10 6/10 Far Side Virtual was met with greater critical attention than Ferraro's previous releases. Just over a year after its release, Marc Masters at wrote that Far Side Virtual 'became Ferraro's most discussed and divisive effort, landing on year-end best-of lists as often as it got dismissed as a joke.' At, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 77, which indicates 'generally favorable reviews', based on seven reviews. Critics tended to agree that Far Side Virtual takes the state of 21st-century as its subject, but there was no consensus regarding whether Ferraro intended to satirize, criticize or embrace this condition. Brandon Soderberg said that the album's concept 'seemed critic-proof, which was frustrating.
Negative reviews could be dismissed as the listeners simply not getting the joke.' The Wire published a favorable review by Joseph Stannard, in which he wrote 'If it is an elaborate put-on—and I suspect Ferraro isn't averse to a chuckle at the expense of his audience— Far Side Virtual still feels like the culmination of numerous releases' worth of research and development. Whether or not its creator is giggling through a bong smoke haze, Far Side Virtual is a convincing evocation of the digital dreamtime.' Stefan Wharton of ' took the album as a statement about blurred boundaries between consumers and their technologies, citing the writing of as a precedent. Wharton said, ' Far Side Virtual succeeds in exciting the collective memory of that generation now so conjoined to its technological appendages.' In Pitchfork 's review, Soderberg wrote, 'the songs here are exactly the same as what they're ostensibly parodying, which is bold and maybe even the point.
You suddenly realize you're listening to 45 minutes of utilitarian music that doesn't really have a purpose. Can something be utopian and dystopian at the same time? Maybe even always.'
Steve Shaw of called the album 'an intense immersive listening experience that is both deeply comforting and unsettling at the same time' and said 'arguably, it is more a piece of art than a collection of music. Compositionally, Far Side Virtual is truly frenetic, nothing safe from Ferraro’s meddling, all elements completely malleable and at the mercy of his eccentric imagination.' Gave the album a three-star review, and the staff reviewer wrote that Ferraro 'makes a glowing, glossy album out of everyday digital detritus. If you can wade through the excruciating sitar-synths, bank-lobby melodies, home-fitness techno, and infomercial drum breaks, Ferraro's playfulness blips into view.'
Accolades Far Side Virtual appeared on several 'best of 2011' lists and features. In Tiny Mix Tapes' end-of-year wrap-up column on nostalgia in pop music, Jonathan Dean wrote, 'You may want to throw Far Side Virtual against a wall upon hearing its relentlessly arch, kitschy blandness, but it manages to successfully turn pop against itself, which, like it or not, is a politically progressive project. Its pure, bold conceptualism stood out in a year that was dominated by the 'febrile sterility' of post-internet microgenres and tail-swallowing postmodernism.' Music critic Jonah Weiner cited Far Side Virtual for his end-of-year article on contemporary, and called it 'antagonizingly, alienatingly, wondrously bland.' Fact named Hippos in Tanks the best label of the year, listing the signing of Ferraro and subsequent release of Far Side Virtual as one of its finest accomplishments.
Tiny Mix Tapes included the album as its 21st-best album of the year, and summarized the album as 'hyperreal. Eerily familiar and scarily comfortable: pop structures moving one step closer toward the 'synthetic music box' from 's.'
Fact ranked Far Side Virtual as its sixth-best album of the year, and called it 'the finest, most accessible example yet of James Ferraro’s ability to turn the detritus and dreck of US pop/commercial culture into gold – or, at any rate, something stomach-turningly psychedelic, mentally disturbing yet oddly celebratory.' Dummy named the album one of its '12 albums for 2011,' and Ruth Saxelby concluded that Ferraro 'neither celebrates nor critiques the internet's reign but simply observes it with deep fascination.
Style, it reflects the ambiguity of consumer culture in the digital age back at us with a Pixar-animated wink.' The album placed at 316 on poll, with votes from four critics. Far Side Virtual topped The Wire 's top 50 releases of 2011 —a choice that proved to be polarizing among readers. Writing to elucidate the 'low mandate' for the album, editor-in-chief Tony Herrington noted that only seven of 60 voters included Far Side Virtual on their lists, and no voters chose it as their personal favorite. Herrington said the choice was 'entirely appropriate in a year in which the abundance of choice brought on by digital technology reached such a tipping point as to make genuine consensus impossible. You either swoon over the conceptual audacity of its deadpan appropriation of late capitalist-era corporate mood Muzak, or you think it's the worst record never made.' Tiny Mix Tapes' Dean wrote that after Far Side Virtual topped The Wire 's list, 'discerning music nerds have felt the imperative to step to either side of a line,' and that Herrington's column 'amounted to a retraction.'
While praising the magazine for its diverse taste, 's Eric Grandy jokingly commented that it was 'no surprise' that the 'willfully obscurantist' magazine would top their list with a 'winking Windows '97 soft-rock hellscape'. Track listing. 'Linden Dollars' – 1:57. 'Global Lunch' – 2:13. 'Dubai Dream Tone' – 1:49.
'Sim' – 2:53. 'Bags' – 3:25. 'PIXARnia and the Future of Norman Rockwell' – 1:44. 'Palm Trees, Wi-Fi and Dream Sushi' – 2:39. 'Fro Yo and Cellular Bits' – 2:19.
'Google Poeises' – 3:51. 'Starbucks, Dr. Seussism, and While Your Mac Is Sleeping' – 2:25. 'Adventures in Green Foot Printing' – 3:28. 'Dream On' – 3:07. 'Earth Minutes' – 4:17.
'Tomorrow's Baby of the Year' – 1:49. 'Condo Pets' – 3:31.
'Solar Panel Smile' – 4:08 References.
James Ferraro paints a 21st century still life on his debut album for Hippos In Tanks. The record is called Far Side Virtual. Each song, a melodious reflection of the moment NOW, comes shrink-wrapped in HD fidelity as glossy as a 2012 Toyota Prius. Ferraro’s muse is some enigmatic modern metropolis, where the streets are as slick as i-Pads, and where the symphonies ring with Macbook message alerts. Through the steam rising from our latte mocha chinos, he invites us to gaze out at the dreamy disorientation of our digital lives. Imagine a Darius Milhuad-guided tour of 5th Avenue. Imagine a Whole Foods bakery that sells only cakes emblazoned with frosting replicas of Camille Pissarro's “Haying at Eragny.” These are the surreal utopias Ferraro brings to life with sixteen swirly-pop concoctions sure to sell out at the candy stores.
Far Side Virtual Download
So slip in your ear buds, and welcome to Far Side Virtual. ITunes: For online orders please order from one of the following record stores: Genre Contains tracks by published on 2011-12-12T02:54:16Z. License: all-rights-reserved.