This project was assembled by Aaron Gonzalez, from the Dallas underground noise scene. He led this group of six musicians in a conceptual improvisation and named it Age of Disinformation. This is said to be a “lucid nightmare supergroup”. They played a live performance at midnight on may 23rd 2008. This seems to be of importance because they emphasize on this in the liner notes and press release. Blame it on the abundance of information they provide (or the lack of it), but I really don't see how this relates to the music...But I'm sure this was a great show. And I probably would have liked to be there. There's only one downside to this, I doubt it was necessary to release it on cd. Furthermore, to promote it. It's released in a limited edition of 200 cdr, and a smaller print could have made a good souvenir for the player's and the people attending the show. And we wouldn't be here talking about it.

The concept behind the show, and I'm not sure about the meaning of all this, was: “an improvisation on the current state of psychological and spiritual breakdown as it relates to viral ecosystems of economies of information”. Euh... Great exercise in conceptual improvisation, but is it suppose to make the music more interesting? All the players involved int his come from the same scene, so they probably share a similar philosophy on life and music. But from an outsider point of view, it appears a bit too pompous. Also when I read a press release as pretentious as this, I'm not sure where this is getting to : “...a 45-minute cloud of transmogrifying cadmium clouds with mercury lining..” Say what?!

It's actually a cloud of keyboards, electronics/samples, radio transmissions, blurred vocals, trombone and electric guitars. For a live recording the sound is pretty decent though; you can hear the dynamics between the players and there's depth in the overall sound (good job on the mix). The music is not that bad and there's some interesting moments. But most of it appears as some sketched ideas that are not totally exploited. For example, I liked when the drum programming comes in at some point. But every time it comes in, the person playing it is really not sure if he should be doing that; it's hesitant, amateur, and not really as exciting as it could have been. Same thing when the trombone and the electric guitar breaks the uniformity; great melodic lines that could have brought this recording somewhere else, but it fails to do so. It's a cloud alright, a cloud of messy distorted sounds and good ideas not coming to term. And like a rain cloud, too much of the same color: gray.

And I guess the whole concept turned me off. The idea that our society is living a time of spiritual crisis is getting worn out. It needs to be thought out differently and acted upon in new ways. Proposing disinformation as the way of evolution ( as proposed by Age of Disinformation) is just the other side of the same coin. Disinformation is information. Computers paved a new world and we're getting thrown in without being aware of what's going on. And like information, music is also more accessible. If we don't want to get caught in the crap, we need to teach critical thinking. 5/10 -- Frédérick Galbrun (3 March, 2010)