![\"\"](\"https:\/\/freeccm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Derek-Webb-Ctrl-Cvr-web-300x300.jpg\" "\\"Derek")
ckholm Syndrome<\/em>, in a song titled \u201cFreddie Please,\u201d singer-songwriter Derek Webb addresses the head of a certain Kansan family known for hoisting hateful signs aloft and picketing the funerals of soldiers.<\/p>\nOver a disposable bed of music that sounds like an electronic retread of the Penguins\u2019 \u201cEarth-Angel,\u201d Webb pleads from the perspective of the risen Christ with Freddie, who is picketing the empty tomb.<\/p>\n
When I interviewed Webb in Leawood, Kansas on October 20 prior to his performance in support of his new album, Ctrl<\/em>, I felt I had a geographic obligation to ask him if anyone from Freddie\u2019s family had contacted him about the song. Freddie lives in Topeka, after all\u2014a scant seventy miles west of the concert venue.<\/p>\n \u201c(Freddie\u2019s) granddaughter reached out to me on Twitter,\u201d Webb explained. \u201cShe thought the song was great.\u201d The communication remained courteous, and culminated in Webb inviting the family to protest at one of his shows.<\/p>\n \u201cI know I\u2019m kind of a small fish,\u201d he told her, \u201cbut it would be like winning a Grammy if you could get some protesters to my show. She said, \u2018Oh, we would love to\u2014if you would just forward me a copy of your itinerary, we\u2019ll see what we can do.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, fantastic. I will!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While Webb claims to be a small fish, he founded a whale of a website in NoiseTrade.com. The site allows artists to supply listeners with free music, and encourages listeners to tip artists. It has become planetary enough in power to pull the likes of Aimee Mann, Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave 3), and Andrew Bird into orbit with its gravity.<\/p>\n In addition to his success with NoiseTrade, Webb boasts over thirty thousand Twitter followers as a singer-songwriter. One would think Freddie would be eager to borrow Webb\u2019s spotlight for his own purposes, but neither he nor his family members have materialized at any of Webb\u2019s concerts. He continues to supply Freddie with his itinerary.<\/p>\n That Webb would invite one of the most reviled families in America to protest at his concert would seem strange were it not for his Twitter profile. In addition to identifying himself as singer, songwriter, producer, remixer, and noisetrader, he also lists agitator among his descriptors.<\/p>\n \u201cIn whatever situation I am in, I have instincts for disruption\u2014constructive disruption,\u201d he replies when I ask him about his attraction to agitation. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s a coincidence. I spent the first half of my life as a spiritually awake person believing I was on my way to being rewired because the way I was wired wasn\u2019t constructive or good. Now I believe I\u2019m wired the way I am for a reason\u2014that I just need to identify the right things to rebel against.\u201d<\/p>\n I initially dismissed Webb\u2019s solo music because of his affiliations with the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) act Caedmon\u2019s Call. While many of my collegiate colleagues heeded the call in 1997 when the band released its self-titled debut, the music was too polished and pretty for me.<\/p>\n I preferred far more fractious fare\u2014Radiohead\u2019s OK Computer<\/em>, Elliott Smith\u2019s Either\/Or<\/em>, and Jeremy Enigk\u2019s Return of the Frog Queen<\/em>, to be precise.<\/p>\n Webb would remain stranded on a CCM isle in my imagination if not for the first of his two 2012 releases: The Sola-Mi <\/em>EP. I downloaded the free, nine-song record, which was billed as the self-titled work of a trio known as Sola-Mi, following an endorsement on Twitter by Relevant<\/em> magazine founder Cameron Strang.<\/p>\n Upon hearing it and becoming aware of Webb\u2019s involvement in the project, I realized I needed to reevaluate him as an artist. Sola-Mi <\/em>was a brief but dense electronic work that owed its aesthetics to acts like Portishead, Four Tet, Squarepusher, and perhaps even Brian Eno.<\/p>\n When Webb identifies Sola-Mi as the name of the EP\u2019s female protagonist in the interview, I cannot help but think of her as the sister of Radiohead\u2019s Kid A<\/em>.<\/p>\n According to Webb, the EP is \u201cabout the first machine \u2018waking up\u2019 and asking a series of questions, trying to identify itself\u2014contextualize itself.\u201d When he speaks of machines awakening, he treads on the territory of futurist Ray Kurzweil.<\/p>\n The EP opens with a track titled \u201cKeynote,\u201d which features samples from Transcendent Man<\/em>, Barry Ptolemy\u2019s 2009 documentary on Kurzweil.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have reverse-engineered all the regions of the brain, and that will provide us with the software to simulate all the brain\u2019s capabilities, including our emotional intelligence,\u201d Kurzweil explains before his voice disappears into a crowd of cloned Kurzweils speaking in stereo.<\/p>\n If I understand the significance of the sample in the context of Webb\u2019s creation, it stands to reason that an artificial life form that thinks like a human might become conscious like one as well.<\/p>\n Webb likens the first conscious machine\u2014which would awaken and know everything, but not know why\u2014to a baby entering the world with the intellect of Einstein as an adult. \u201cIt asks all the big philosophical questions\u2014which are my questions, and our questions. It thinks it\u2019s human because its memories are human. It\u2019s connected to YouTube. It\u2019s connected to Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n The band\u2019s website describes the EP as \u201cthe official motion picture soundtrack for (Solomon) Mente\u2019s NEXUS<\/em>.\u201d Mente and NEXUS<\/em> appear to be as imaginary as most of the films U2 and Brian Eno scored on Original Soundtracks 1<\/em>\u2014the collaborative album<\/a> they released under the name Passengers<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In the Sola-Mi<\/em> EP, I stumbled upon one of the best records of 2012. Four months later\u2014two months after the release of Webb\u2019s new solo record, Ctrl<\/em>\u2014I learned that Sola-Mi was not alone in the world. Webb\u2019s musical twins were separated at birth, leaving his listeners to figure out their common ancestry.<\/p>\n Tomorrow, I will write about Sola-Mi\u2019s musical sibling. In the meantime, download free music and your musical cup will overflow with sonic eggnog:<\/p>\n The Sola-Mi<\/em> EP<\/a> from the band\u2019s official website.<\/p>\n Webb and his wife, singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken, have made the single \u201cFrom You to Me\u201d from their TN<\/em> EP available at NoiseTrade.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Three songs from Sandra McCracken\u2019s new album, Desire like Dynamite<\/em>, are available through NoiseTrade.com<\/a><\/strong>. Purchase her album through her website<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n