It Eats Itself into Tree Trunks by Nobodyis

We all feel as if we’re watching the end of something. Skies explode with unnatural color as cancer-causing particles dance in the evening light. Fights break out in the street among strangers for reasons not fully comprehended by either combatant. Life bombards us with noise as we tune out the sounds of friendly voices all around us. Naturally, we see this end as something to be avoided at all costs, a point at which everything we hold dear becomes meaningless and safety becomes impossible. However, experimental electronic artist Nobodyis invites us to reconsider this fear on their new record It Eats Itself into Tree Trunks, an unusual testimony of the muted happiness that comes after the end.

After the end, there’s no worry, no time, no noise. People pick up the pieces and kick them around a little for their own amusement, the way Nobodyis does with some elements of contemporary music, but there’s no serious attempt to build anything grand anymore. Nobodyis picks up a guitar, makes some grooves on a drum machine, and flips a few samples, but more than anything else they seem to just be enjoying the peace in their little post-cultural world. Some of the synths here introduce a low level of melancholy, but that never escalates to a serious level of depression. In showing us the fun to be had in a world with access to technology but no particular reason to use it, Nobodyis vaporizes the burden of our anxiety. Collapse doesn’t mean complete destruction, and the shards that are left will become all the more beautiful in the light of the world that emerges from our abusive age.