Without lyrical content or even clues in the title as to what autOaudiO’s vision of the future may be as represented musically, one is left to invest oneself fully into the actual composition—and therein lay the rewards. Levi asked for submissions to this edition of Ball of Wax to revolve around “the future,” with no additional specificity required. That leaves the artists free to interpret how they like.
The synths that swim toward the listener’s ears at the beginning of this untitled track embody a liveliness, a newly-forming aural colony reproducing, teeming with life and survival instinct, their motility driving them out and about in various directions—seemingly random but somehow still organized. They’re allowed to proliferate, albeit placed gently to one side, and a blooping synth and trimmed beat take the central role on this beatlab benchtop, seeming to skip along without real direction and yet aligned to the aforementioned organism. In their symbiotic state, they bring us to a somewhat sudden primary analog motif and then, together, the various elements do that to which life is occasionally driven: They evolve. Bloops find their place as the backbone of an actual jam, the fledgling beat becomes an electronic four-on-the-floor, and our colony of aurobacillus chimedophilus acquires a new life complete with a silvery sheen and slow decay.
Lyrics might only have taken away autOaudiO’s untitled statement, which is as much mankind’s own statement toward this point in time as to what the future holds: Despite difficulty and hostile environments, life survives, even flourishes.