STYLSS - ¿THA FCK? (April Fools Compilation)

The new Portland netlabel 'STYLSS' have unleashed their free April Fool's compilation on the world, showcasing some of Soundcloud's most intriguing bedroom producers. What can I say, after the Sinewave comp, and the Seapunk and Icepunk volumes, this kind of internet sample-socialism is a fairly familiar formula but ¿THA FCK? fills a very interesting and so far underrated niche in the landscape of modern computer music. Perhaps the 'Sine Field' guys already cover this ground though not as comprehensively, in fact Nick Logistik and Poor Sport from the Sine Wave comp make an appearance. The compilation fills in the vacuum created by death of witch-haus wherein the coldly quantized rollers have been recontextualised in a murkier, more absurd soundscape made up by trap-fills and fat bass riffs. At 34 tracks the groups aesthetic vision is fully mapped out across almost every sonic terrain from chiptune influences to witch haus, new age synth lines to trippy internet sampledelica but all kept within a deep-south-style, trap rollin' framework. This compilation and, not to mention every other massive netlabel based compilation that has come out recently, is surely representative of a widespread musical movement and one that would logically fit into a post-modern age. Firstly, the fact that all the tunes are pay-optional is indicative of the free market of ideas that the enormous soundcloud community shares, and furthermore the shear abundance of the music render any notions of the auteur almost redundant. Instead netlabels like STYLSS work like little businesses, pumping out their particular brand of mass-produced, computer-aged goodness. That is not undermine the quality of this music, almost all of which shows a large amount of creativity and finesse, however i can't help but hear the disappointing tinge of musicians trying too hard to assert their stylistic legitimacy in a world over-saturated with amateur beatmakers.