Head throbbing with excess pleasures only hazily recalled, I was less than thrilled to find that Or Zubalsky–who records under the name Juviley–released his album, Our Choices Rhyme, as an interactive video game that demanded your participation to access the tracks online. A screen loads for several seconds before welcoming you with a campy, tart message: “This is my new album. It’s a video game. START.”
Pressing start was baffling. I was left looking at a blank screen and told there were ghosts I had to click on to get points. Each time I clicked, the blackness lit up as if by lightning, to illuminate still photos upon whose surface there are, indeed, small grey forms like ghosts crawling about.
The format of Juviley’s online album asks you to play a video game to hear the music, buying tracks with points scored by clicking on shapes you can only see when you clock. A trite, wholly frustrating convention that infuriates anyone looking for groundbreaking originality in their music–until you try it. I could not help assuming when I found out about the video game aspect that the concept would prove a hopeless gimmick that would exhaust my interest as soon as accustomed myself to the form. That said, I’ve now found that I know little or nothing about how I actually respond to music because this ‘gimmick’ took me delightfully by surprise and showed me that innovative formats can break new ground in a listening experience.
After the three minute learning curve, I was entirely engaged in the game, quickly winning my downloadable prizes along with the ranking of Sea Star, soon winning the Algae Package. Before I even knew what had happened, I’d listened to the EP all the way through, giving no more thought to it than the frantic synth and drum machine one-two backdrop of Atari games. Juviley’s looped instrument melodies would be lonely on their own, but together weave into transcendental textures that add layers to develop into something more ambient. Top it all off with Zubalsky’s muttered vocals that recall Morrissey’s delivery to seal the package. Our Choices Rhyme has an infectious head-bobbing groove aesthetic that comes directly from its heavily affected keyboard and guitar lines. If the songs cleave to the limited sonic palette of midi instruments and recycled harmonies, they do so to create a uniform timbre that evokes a certain nostalgia for the music that you listened to without knowing it–the ambient tones that we consume unaware in films, hotel lobbies, nascent adolescence in our parents’ cars.
Drum machine pop and loop pedals are as much a governing influence as the pixilated platform of video games with Juviley. The hybrid format demands an audience participation that is a relief, really, from over-analysis and artistic expectations. It would be a novelty if it weren’t as addictive as pulling scabs; it feels more like a meditative practice. Emptying oneself of ego, freeing you to listen to music on the periphery, this interactive music gaming makes Our Choices Rhyme the musical wallpaper of a very simple, visceral pleasure. It distracts from unfair critical expectations, snobbish originality standards, or even the nausea of body sweats and Mai Tai burps.