In a recent column for the New Yorker, writer Kyle Chayka details a “lo-fi rebellion” against the aesthetics of tech-driven uniformity: “Anything that appears too smooth these days is suspicious,” he says, citing a recent Weezer tour poster featuring the “Cool S,” the universal sigil of our shared humanity, as a counter-example. Chayka’s subjects primarily operate in the visual worlds of marketing and design, but it’s easy to identify sonic parallels. The kids are selling their turntables and buying guitars, saving rock’n’roll, and banging their heads until they incur nerve damage. In the face of A.I. homogeneity, the human —embodied, subjective, flawed—is in.
MASK, a new collection of songs from Aaron Maine’s indie pop project Porches…