Farside Virtual Review
Remember the late 2000s to early 2010s, when technology focused on looking curvy and shiny? It was a pretty cool era, one that presented a vision of the future where we could interact with see-through glass screens, automated cars, and holograms.
Far Side Virtual, released in 2011, is like sitting in the lobby of a big company waiting to make some kind of deal, while also feeling like a vision of a clear and healthy future.
The whole album was made in GarageBand. You may think that would make this album sound terrible, but the cheesiness does fit into the theme of what a computer’s role is in society. I think the artificial sound presents how the overuse of computers in a society will eventually affect the need for real instruments, and therefore, musicians trained in such instruments. Eventually, the sound will become more realistic and anyone can create a cocek band on their computers.
The names of the tracks are also the oddest that I have seen yet, such as “Google Poeises”, “Palm Trees, Wi-Fi, and Dream Sushi”, “Tomorrow’s Baby of the Year”, and my personal favourite, “PIXARnia and the Future of Norman Rockwell”. One that is interesting is “Google Poeises”. I’m not sure if he meant poiesis, which is the emergence of something previously non-existent, or if this is supposed to be Google creating a fake Greek god to sell a product.
Some tracks have a nostalgic feeling that reminds me of certain pieces of media. “Fro Yo” reminds me a bit of the game Mind Quiz on the Nintendo DS, “Palm Trees” makes me think of the Axiom from WALL-E and the many images I have seen of futuristic resorts, “Sim” is literally about virtual worlds(guess which one), and “Solar Panel Smile” layers BIOS music with the Windows XP shutdown to create quite the relaxing sound collage that reminds me of my own childhood! Speaking of sampling, there are some really cool samples on some tracks, like “Global Lunch” using the Skype login and “Earth Minutes” using the sound of the late-90s Saban logo.
“Adventures in Green Foot Printing” is the highlight of the album, where the piano and synths give off the cool feeling of starting your training at the new company. It really feels like something out of a crisp future where computers become a part of our daily lives no matter what environment we are in and eco-friendliness only seems to be achieved. Notice how many companies are named in this song like Pixar, Google, and Starbucks. This future, while stylish and crisp, is one that is marred by consumerism.
This is reflected in the little lyrics you’ll get are the varied text-to-speech voices that are meant to mimic interactivity. They are made to sound like butlers, maids, service workers, and other people that work menial/service jobs. Listening to them speak, they reflect a formality that I feel has more humanity than how most apps phrase sentences nowadays, like YouTube replacing “Video will play after ad” with “Video plays soon”. It’s not only grammatically incorrect, but it feels infantilising and somewhat condescending.
In a way, the future that Farside Virtual presents seems to be a lot better than what we have more than a decade later. When we depict the future in the modern era, it is portrayed as some neo-cyberpunk wasteland that looks really cool but gives a bleak image of what the future holds. It seems we can’t imagine a brighter future anymore because of all the shit that’s happening in the world. Climate change is an issue that’s being debated over and over despite the amount of evidence proving that climate change is happening, so this future where the future looks all crisp like this is lost not only because of that, but because as a society, we have become more maximalist and less organised.
My generation has become more and more sedentary knowing that AI and automation are threatening the livelihoods, prospects, and careers of so many people. Companies are working to make AI capable of replacing writers, actors, visual effects artists, and other creative jobs that require a human touch to achieve the highest quality. Menial jobs are also under threat with the power of automation, which will leave many people either jobless or forced to take up computer science in order to make any kind of living.
I implore you to listen to this album. It’s not only a great piece of musical art with some relaxing tracks, it’s a caution about what consumerism brings. It’s not going to bring a crisp future, but one that is unkempt, where being a lazy, miserable slob that demands the best from others without doing anything yourself is normalised by the commercials on TV and YouTube.
