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Decorative Arts

by Ben McCarthy

supported by
Cale Weir
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Cale Weir i've heard this record a million times over the course of it's making and it still sounds good! Favorite track: All Our Happy Days Are Stupid.
some girl
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Daniel Field
Daniel Field thumbnail
casian_gv
casian_gv thumbnail
bernard/o
bernard/o thumbnail
cosmikrepercussions
cosmikrepercussions thumbnail
lighghtmusic
lighghtmusic thumbnail
romanne
romanne thumbnail
Lying Dalai
Lying Dalai thumbnail
jonathan carroll
jonathan carroll thumbnail
janehermain
janehermain thumbnail
Slowcraft
Slowcraft thumbnail
Brad Rose
Brad Rose thumbnail
bodywaltz
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Mike Metlay
Mike Metlay thumbnail
tonepoet
tonepoet thumbnail
Dirty Inputs
Dirty Inputs thumbnail
Eli Speigel
Eli Speigel thumbnail
dex902
dex902 thumbnail
Samuel Little
Samuel Little thumbnail
totallbear
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Joanna Demers
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stellabastone
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/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $7 USD  or more

     

  • All Our Happy Days Are Stupid tee
    T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album

    Limited run, original artwork by Cale Weir capturing a fundamental thesis, sentiment, and song title from the last record. DIY, Gildan iron-on vibes, made lovingly by local therapist. If yr Sheila Heti I will mail you a free one.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Decorative Arts via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Decorative Arts tee
    T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album

    Limited run, album artwork by Saira Sabri and Evangeline Y Brooks featuring a forbidden basketball court in forbidding times. DIY, Gildan iron-on vibes, made lovingly by local therapist.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Decorative Arts via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out
1.
s+h ground 05:17
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2.
scav edit b 02:33
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3.
All Our Happy Days Are Stupid 05:31
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4.
Ben McCarthy, Lighght - beneath the ice, the river still flows 07:04
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5.
WhatsApp Narcissist 03:55
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6.
My Mistake (easy to love) 04:53
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7.
Ben McCarthy, Tax Haven - Ultra Bloor 08:19
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8.
After Anomie (more hope) 09:30
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about

Jean-Michel Basquiat said somewhere-- succinctly put, deceptively apparent-- ‘art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.’ There’s something about ambient music in particular, with its generic propensity to place front-and-centre everything that should be background, that makes it a particular exemplar of aestheticized time. Maybe you listen before sleep. Maybe as you ply yourself to some domestic task you’ve miraculously made time for; maybe (more miracle still) as you sit protracted through seasons watching black branches become green-then-golden fronds, waving at halfspeed through yr kitchen window. This is good. My stated goal here was only to move the old folks at home with my electronic music, and to give Mark Fisher something to write about-- may he RIP big.

A bit about the record for the readers (some impressions on the making-- perhaps totally irrelevant to your listening):

The songs collected here are more exploratory than experimental. Pushing to make a fucking mp3 of the sounds and songs I heard seeded in generative melodies, field recordings, sampled videos, and free software. Made over countless smoky nights begun after my bbs were in bed, ending in the wincing chirrup of dawn birds. Lubricated by too much of my best friend’s rye. And just dumbly grasping for that sound, watching my breath unfurl between the monitors.

My memory is poor. In a sense the samples and figures that appear in my music are a lossy mnemonic prosthesis. And so, if from record-to-record my style shifts dramatically, it’s because it reflects the dynamic fluctuations of my subjectivity. New ways of relating to my tiring old self. To sound. To aesthetic. An encounter with the necessary and alienating alterity of the ‘not this’, ‘not here’,’ not self’, ‘not same’. Music held together by the contingency of this encounter, and the fluidity and reticence of the creative will (read: habit). Expression of a dislocated, blanking self.

Finally (inevitably), this is pandemic music. It was made slow, in protracted time, and is for like listening. It’s for you to sit with, sit in. Not to claim the music is grand or special, but rather that it is devised for a personal space of just hearing. Just you, what yr doing, and sounds I pulled together and re-compelled with my laptop at some remove from you now.

Xoxo, ever yrs, etc.

ben

credits

released June 25, 2021

Recorded, mixed, produced, improvised, curated, nudged around in various DAWs, purloined from numerous original play, installation, sound experiment and video game scores by Ben McCarthy.

Album art by Saira Sabri. Additional art by Evangeline Y Brooks. Bandcamp lewk by Cale Weir.

Headshot by Alejandro Santiago.

So so so much thanks and <3 <3 <3 to:
Cale Weir, Saira Sabri, Evangeline Y Brooks, Eamon Ivri, Griffin Martell, Romanne Walker, Andrew Lochhead and Artscape Gibraltar Point.

Eduard Artemyev.

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Ben McCarthy Toronto, Ontario

Ben McCarthy is an electronic musician and sound artist from Toronto, Canada. His work is produced intuitively, meticulously arranging found sound, samples, and software to make music that slips in-and-out of various genres.

From SBVRSV.press: ‘Toronto-based producer & sound artist Ben McCarthy is easily one of the most underrated producers in the city. ’ ... more

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