CFCF is up there with the top musicians working today. Like number 1 or 2 depending on my mood. The aesthetic world he created with Memoryland across a main LP, companion LP Liquid Colours, and accompanying imagery is the most cohesive artistic statement I've come across in years. I don't feel I have the qualifications to speak on its virtues, but a certain nostalgic tone is executed in a way that renders visions of a future that never came, without relying on the sounds and textures of the past.
But we aren't here to talk about the world of Memoryland. There's another way CFCF conjures a world with deftly articulated values and parameters. Playlists. Specifically two playlists. The Stuff I Dig and CFCF: at the Santa Monica pier @ sunrise in a cowboy hat. Both are great, but I'll focus on the latter here.
First, they are beautiful, functional playlists. I find myself turning to them time and again when I need something to listen to in the kitchen, in the car, the living room. They provide a rich vein of novel takes on familiar, comforting sounds. Lush pop melodies floating in psychedelic space, punctuated with gentle, crisp percussion. Each time I listen I find not only a song to love, but usually a whole discography to devour. The chilled out dream pop of Sugar Plant, the tossed off breakbeat of Saint Etienne, or the exotica tinged indie smooth jazz of Hideki Kaji, for example. There's the pleasure of the music itself, and the accompanying thrill of discovering forgotten gems. I suppose this is the promise of the Artist Curated Spotify playlist, but never has it felt so rich, or so like an artistic experience unto itself. Free of the prescriptive interpretation of this indulgent wall of text, CFCF's playlists offer a museum grade curatorial experience like none I've encountered since the advent of the Spotify Playlist. Go listen. The playlists offer more than any context I could possibly seek to provide. If, however, you are curious to read a pseudo-intellectual interpreation of their form and contents, read on.
Combing these playlists as I have the last few years since I discovered them, a specific aesthetic emerged like a glossy mannequin from the sand. A forgotten language of textures, production styles, cover imagery, fashion, subject matter, and emotion, which center on the turn of the 21st century, and the aspirations of a world free from apocalyptic fears, empowered by a newly connected global community. Let's focus on CFCF: at the Santa Monica pier @ sunrise in a cowboy hat, as its more narrow focus and evocative title better lend themselves to thematic exploration. Populated by singer songwriters like Beth Orton, Dido, and PJ harvey, groups like Everything But the Girl, Air, and Sugar Plant, and producers like Thievery Corporation, The Chemical Brothers, and Chicane, the playlist evokes the feeling of sitting in a coffee shop in 2001 in stone washed jeans, reading a copy of an imported Japanese fashion magazine. The sound of lightly flavored air, cozy sweaters, and a pastel toned reality in which the greatest imaginable threat was being seen in last season's styles.
There's a global feel to the selections, and a sense of an international scene connected by emerging communications, cultural, and distribution networks. It must be acknowledged though, that this particular globe is strikingly white, with some Japanese and colonial South American acts represented as well. This only comes into focus with a bit of reflection, and I don't want to dwell on it too much, but think it's worth noting. That can be seen as a meta commentary embedded in the curation, or an oversight of a curator focused purely on aesthetic impact, but either way it reflects the time which it explores. A time when everything was swell within a certain bubble, as long as you didn't bother to look outside. An air conditioned, domed utopia, conjuring an illusion of self-sustaining capabilities, complete with Pauly Shore and co.
All the same, the pleasures contained within bear no qualifications, no caveats, but offer peace, tranquility, and a sense of enormous well being. That well may have run dry, but the music remains, as do images and memories of a time at the end of history, before the bubble burst and reality crashed in.
Going back offers a chance to reimagine a peaceful world and aspire to recreate that utopian bubble, but in earnest, welcoming all, excluding none -- accounting for the costs and incorporating them in the design. To me, that's the value of a project like Memoryland. Conjuring a shared illusion in an attempt to make it real. Bolstering the imagination of a new world clouded by reality, obscured by present circumstance. Maybe what was fake can be made real, lasting, and all encompassing. Or maybe all we can do is soundtrack the fall with pleasant music, and memories of a time when we were going to figure it all out.