AFFLUENZA from AFFLUENZA by Carrillion
Dr. Oliver James ground-breaking polemic against what he calls the Affluenza Plague was first published in 2008 and I have read it several times. Its central conviction is that everyone is too rich nowadays and only want to increase their own richness. This Affluenza Disease is sweeping the planet and James sacrificed the precious first eighteen months of life of his own child to investigate societies all over the world, all of which only reinforced what he had already concluded: That rich people just want to be richer, and everyone wants to be a rich.
This profound argument prompted me to write a conceptual piece of music as a celebration of Dr James' thesis. It is in three movements:
The First Movement suggests the decadent, lazy way in which most people saunter their way through life, and I have included treated samples of orgasms and laughter during this section.
The Second Movement is redolent of a malaise where even rich and successful people get extremely depressed. I chose to set this piece in a busy ambient environment to highlight the loneliness they feel even when in a crowd.
The Third Movement should have been optimistic but I find no optimism in Dr James' book - even he himself is emotionally shattered by his over-bearing father and sees no way out of that feeling, wanting to be a successful writer and cultural commentator... so the Third Movement is quite dark and attempts to show the money running out - indicated by the instruments disappearing one by one until we are left with a drum box and some simple gamelan percussion... the simple life is the only one that can save humanity, and it is to the Far East that we should look.
