“Digitally Modified” is an intriguing prospect: a song that talks about the future while echoes the sound of the past. There is something forward-thinking about the songs’ general demeanor, yet its clockwork, yet computerized sound is reminiscent of the formative days of digital music. And this is, of course, a deliberate sonic choice, a deliberate decision to make a simpler, spacious, wonderfully mechanical music when all and any sound is available to the modern sonic creator. Retro-futurism furnished through ones and zeros.
It could be the sound of a computer becoming sentient and learning how to make music, the ghost in the machine throwing a rave. It could be the sound of a futuristic car plant production line syncing with the rhythms of the world. It is both inhuman and harmonious, a hybrid of man and machine. More than a song, it is a state of mind.
The beats push on, the rhythms are relentless, the heat rises, the tension builds, and by the time the voices are screaming _“we’ll find your turning knobs,”_there is something manic, sister, even in the delivery. That is perfect for a song warning of the encroachment of the digital world into our lives, and into our brains. Are we the ones creating a brave new digital world, or is it actually subliminally and subtly conditioning us? A scary thought indeed.
But, isn’t that the point of music? Doesn’t the best of it have something to say, something for us to ponder, something to take away and think about long after the last beat has faded away? Yes, it does, and of course, the grand irony here is that Co.LeGa has fashioned this early warning from the very thing it tells us to be wary of. How clever is that?
