A Detroit Band's Obsession With NTT DoCoMo
Technolust is to electronic music what marijuana is to hip hop. Think Kraftwerk's Man-Machine or Fatboy Slim's "Everybody Needs a 303." But no one comes closer to total obsession than Detroit's Arpanet. Its debut, Wireless Internet, celebrates telecommunications with all the giddy enthusiasm of a late-'90s analyst. Mixing electro funk with the blissful synthscapes of Jean Michel Jarre, the album has been hailed as genius by French chanteuse Miss Kittin and the loungecore superstars of Air. Here's a breakdown of Arpanet's fixation with one telco in particular.
The Story Behind The Song
"NTT DoCoMo"
An ode to the Japanese wireless provider. A robot-inspired voice-over drones such lyrics as "NTT DoCoMo / Wireless information flow."
"P2101V"
The model number of a DoCoMo 3G cell phone. Composed predominantly of pings and clicks, the song sounds like a band member manically dialing and never getting through.
"I-Mode"
The wireless service lets users browse the Web and check email from their cells. Arpanet believes i-mode subscribers form a "social collective." OK, but the modem handshake squeals are kinda dark, foreboding, and perplexing because i-mode is always on.
"Illuminated Displays"
Thank god for GUIs. As its title suggests, this is the most animated of Arpanet tunes. The grandiose synths are worthy of Kraftwerk, and the bassline goes so deep and spacey that Luke Skywalker could get down and dirty.
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