LA based director and composer Alex Wroten's pet project is a loose collective named The Gatekeepers, who turned his visions of a political psychedelic rock opera by way of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht into a self-titled album in 2022. Everyone who was involved loved the project and when he put out some feelers for the follow-up, Nostalgia for the Great American Monoculture, people jumped at the chance to become part of it. The notoriousle evasive The Residents said yes, as did singers Shawn Phillips, Alison Niedbalski, Molly Harvey and Aislinn Quinn to name a few.
The music is spread over three acts - "Strongman Privilege", "Plug and Prey", and "What Else Is New" (the bonus tracks are rounded up under the "Capital Surplus" banner). The storyline is not that difficult: clamouring for a guy to take charge and save the day, find out that people have been taken for a ride while being entertained ad nauseam with run-of-the-mill content as a diversion of the scheming by the powers that be, and the unevitable regret. The delusion that things were better in the past is taken apart with glee, as the music swerves from vaudeville and jazz to off-kilter avant rock and back. It is quite the opposite of a party record, but the joy of diving into it is far more rewarding and is likely to last much longer.
Nostalgia for the Great American Monoculture is released via Think Like A Key (vinyl, CD, digital).
Tracks:- The Good Old days
- A Knight In Shining Tanktop
- Regulating Entrepreneurial Nirvana
- Zero Interest Self-Financing
- The Immovable Type
- Trail of Cookie Crumbs
- Phishing for Pigs
- Someone Else is Me, and I Feel Fine
- How to Act Real
- All The Content
- The Bad New Days
Bonus tracks (CD, digital only) - Zero Interest Self-Financing (Cult With No Name Remix)
- A Knight in Shining Tanktop (Hollywood Edition)
- Phishing for Pigs (Persuasive Mix)
- Trail of Cookie Crumbs (Demo)
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