One day I picked up a "year in review" type news record from the late 60's. It featured Walter Kronkite espousing the miracles of the modern world, man on the moon, etc. Mixed in with these passages was a journalist recording from the Biafran revolution in which a civilian/rebel is murdered by the establishment regime, in the presence of the two journalists who half-assedly attempt to secure the civilian's safety, coming across more as an intrusion than anything else. Kronkite introduces the scenario with a glib comment about how not all promises are kept like an American would keep one, and he follows it with more feel-good tidbits. The imperialist dynamics of representation were appalling. I imagined some White, middle class average Joe sitting down in his nice fat chair to have an enjoyable listen to the record, and how the Biafran civilian's murder became trivialized through it's decontextualization on the record. Then I began relating this process of decontextualization to the use of "ethnic" instrumentation and singing (generally Middle Eastern and Asian) in Contemporary Ambient music. In particular, I thought about the manner in which the concept of music as "universal" conceals the socio-political context within which the original recordings were produced, replacing it with a fetishistic Western concept of Orientalism. And again, here was this image of some White, middle class average Joe sitting down in his nice fat chair to have an enjoyable listen to a record.
Fat Chair, then, was a comment both on the original journalist recording and the use of ethno-fuck in Contemporary Ambient. I tried to create what would initially come across as a peaceful track, but to continually disrupt its quietude with random low frequency hits, annoyingly hidden buzzes, and eventually allowing the recording of the Biafran civilian's murder to come to the surface, hopefully rupturing any sense of escapism the listener might be experiencing.
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