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work 12" 45rpm
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Clear lathe-cut records by Peter King in New Zealand in an edition of 30 with wood-cut print covers by GB and xerox'ed insert/lyric sheet.
Note - the BSHC is not for profit - the price reflects the precise cost of manufacture of the discs and the art supplies to make the covers. We shed any money that comes to us as fast as possible, putting it towards making more art.
Includes unlimited streaming of work
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Keynes famously and wrongly predicted that the efficiencies provided by industrialization and technology would allow civilization to increase productivity while decreasing toil of the working class. The work week would shrink but standard of living would still rise for all.
So why has the trend been the reverse? Why do most continue to work harder and longer hours for diminishing wages (when adjusted for actual purchasing power)? Moreover, why has technology further ensnared us in a near constant state of work, checking that Blackberry and sending emails at all hours?
Modern western employment is largely so far abstracted away from what has historically been called work to the point where one should question whether it merits being called work at all. Gone is physical labour working towards concrete means of bettering society (building shelter, agriculture, art production, for example) and in its place is banal paper shuffling and conference calls; the peddling of worthless plastic; “consulting”; the building of the façade of progress. Largely, work of today is unnecessary activity, yet it still consumes most our waking lives.
Why did Keynes get it so wrong?
Perhaps he misunderstood the purpose of work. Perhaps work isn’t simply a means of organizing society for production and progress. Perhaps it’s more to do with distraction, discipline and control.
Throughout history it appears that in every civilization, once the point is reached where collective labour begins to produce surplus, efforts are quickly redirected to monument building, rituals and other superfluous activities. Modern day anthropologists try to decode the meaning of these statues, pyramids and stone circles, as is certain future anthropologists will attempt to dissect our highways, shopping malls and endless stacks of paper. Perhaps they are all overlooking the obvious.
The answer may lie in the fact that a society with surplus and leisure has the time to think and question the status quo; to question if society needs a hierarchy; to wonder why we agree to be ruled; to question why the spoils of progress are unevenly distributed; to wonder why we submit to an authority. If power wants to prevent this collective awakening, all that needs to be done is to make sure we are always busy and distracted, our days occupied with seemingly important tasks we are told are critical to not only our collective progress but our individual survival. This may serve to explain why many a life has been wasted hauling monoliths and now filling out reports.
Simply put, those with their noses kept to grindstone cannot look up. Pyramids yesterday, filing cabinets today.
credits
released February 20, 2015
Work - by, The Bullshit Hardcore Band
Work Part 1 is a cut-up edit of various 4-track cassette demos and rehearsal recordings made in Spring 2014 by the BSHC that was subsequently stitched together via Audacity freeware.
Work Part 2 was spontaneously composed and recorded by the BSHC also in Spring 2014.
The Bullshit Hardcore band is GB on guitars and vocals, and Lee Shatwater on vocals and drums.
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