Review: James Ferraro “NYC, Hell 3:00AM”

09 Nov 2013 — Andrew Wagner

James Ferraro’s come a long way. It’s hard to believe it’s been only two years since Far Side Virtual, Ferraro’s bewildering, maximalist masterpiece of an album, came out. At the time, Far Side Virtual seemed to signify a major transformation in Ferraro from an (extremely) lo-fi, hypnagogic aesthetic to a clearer, more future-oriented sound composed of digital scraps. Yet, as incongruous as Ferraro’s new sound may have seemed, Far Side Virtual still shared a certain over-the-top, witty approach to our cultural detritus that was keeping in line with earlier albums like Night Dolls with Hairspray or On Air. NYC, Hell 3:00AM, however, couldn’t feel further apart from these earlier works, the humor sucked out and replaced with a deeply meditative and somber soundscape.

Not that NYC, Hell 3:00AM should be surprising, per se. Indeed, Ferraro’s most recent release, the mixtape Cold, superficially shares many of NYC’s sonic elements: brooding synths, hip-hop drum beats, Ferraro’s strained and crooning voice, and the occasional piano flourish. On Cold, the hip-hop and R&B elements grounded Ferraro, pushing the songs forward even when the vocals threatened to become completely lost in themselves. In contrast, NYC finds all of the sonic elements—beats included—becoming sucked into a sort of whirlpool of despair. At the same time that the song structures endlessly drift, they never seem to get anywhere. Hell, indeed.

 

What exactly is Ferraro so depressed about? Oftentimes it’s unclear, with Ferraro’s vocals warbling around, subsumed by the music’s synths. When they do come through, they suggest an utter discontent with the city. “City Smells,” ostensibly a love song, feels far more like a lonely individual trapped in himself and his nihilism: “Oh girl I know you want to love me / What it’s like in the empty city.” The elements of the city that do peak into Ferraro’s insular world are dark, verging on the apocalyptic. Computerized voices alternatively announce “breaking news”, “money, money, money”, “AT&T,” and “sextape pixilation.” “Stuck 1” opens with sirens, but even these are slowed down to match the near creeping pace of Ferraro’s universe.

And yet, in spite of its overwhelmingly nihilistic outlook, NYC is immensely listenable. It isn’t quite enjoyable as much as it is cathartic. “Cheek Bones,” one of the album’s most straightforward tracks, exemplifies how relatable NYC can be. Ferraro sings, “I don’t want to get cancer / but these cigarettes give me cancer / and I start to cry." It’s a sort of strangely circuitous logic matched by the song’s formal structure, going somewhere but never quite making it past where Ferraro starts. In spite of how simple the solution might seem to the outside listener—just quit smoking—there’s something eminently understandable about Ferraro on this song, of knowing that one needs to stop something but not being able to bring oneself to. Throughout the track, Ferraro emits a borderline disgusting, gutteral noise that almost sounds as though he’s throwing up. It’s the sort of left-field weirdness that characterized so much of his earlier noise work, but used here for far different means. It’s refreshing to hear Ferraro using all of his tools to so sincerely describe a certain human condition.

Some of the most enjoyable parts of the album, though, come on its few instrumental tracks. Here, NYC comes the closest to flirting with prettiness—albeit a deeply melancholic one. On “QR JR.”, for instance, Ferraro combines wind chimes, drifting pianos, and the occasional found sound sample. The song achieves an impressionistic beauty reminiscent of some of Dirty Beaches’ recent LP, Drifters/Love is the Devil. “Vanity”, though more beat driven, similarly achieves a strange sort of beauty with its looping strings. Throughout both songs, Ferraro adds enough weird sounds to add depth to the compositions, keeping them from being merely sentimental. In turn, such tracks (as well as “Stuck 1” and “Stuck 2”) might be some of Ferraro’s most compelling and challenging music yet. Uncomfortably sitting between sincerity and irony, the digital and the analogue, they construct a sonic space that is at once seductive and off-putting. Such characteristics extend to NYC, Hell 3:00AM as a whole—the album, at once unbearably bleak, is also one that entrances the listener and keeps her listening.

NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is available now from Hippos in Tanks.