NYC, Hell 3:00 AM
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | October 15, 2013 | |||
Recorded | 2012–13 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 61:36 | |||
Label | Hippos in Tanks | |||
Producer | James Ferraro | |||
James Ferraro chronology | ||||
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Singles from NYC, Hell 3:00 AM | ||||
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Alternate cover | ||||
Alternate cover | ||||
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is a
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM explores themes of decadent aspects of life in
Recording and concept
The writing and recording of what would later be titled NYC, Hell 3:00 AM started in the fall of 2012 only as a ritualistic project for Ferraro to record exclusively during midnight hours. At the time, he had only vaguely planned it as an imaginary soundtrack to a
Some of the lyrics for the record were taken from a 20-page poem Ferraro wrote after going to a fashion party on a night circa 2011, while other lyrics were improvised.
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is based around the unwholesome and decadent part of New York City Ferraro saw as unknown to most of the world, and was described by him as "a surreal psychological sculpture of American decay and confusion."[5][2] The 3:00 AM part of the record's title is the hour of when each night of recording the album began, and according to Ferraro, this made the LP a "snapshot" of New York City when "the hedonism kind of spills out."[5] The parts of the city Ferraro saw and knew about that inspired the record include the violence in Brooklyn, the crack and heroin-selling areas in Chinatown, Manhattan and The Sun Bright Hotel where news reports have accredited it to keeping guests in cages,[5] as well as, in Ferraro's words, "rats, metal landscape, toxic water, junkie friends, HIV billboards, evil news, luxury and unbound wealth, exclusivity, facelifts, romance, insane police presence [and] lonely people... all against the sinister vastness of Manhattan's alienating skyline."[2]
Philosophy
One of the forces behind the creation of NYC, Hell 3:00 AM was "a mental stuck", which parallels the content of the interludes of the same name featured on the album; it also considers the world as a constantly changing but "completely fixed thing".[5] In an interview with Miles Bowe for Stereogum, Ferraro said:
I feel like we’re in this giant traffic jam. Like you’ll be trapped on the train and try to escape into your phone but you get no bars and it’s just... stuck. There’s nowhere to go. You have to embrace that moment when you’re stuck with everybody. Everything’s congested — the economy, everything is oversaturated and there’s no mobility. That’s the mental space of thinking of something as global as New York or as global as the economy — sometimes it’s a weird checkmate logic. For someone who is not an economist and trying to think about it, you get into this sort of congested rationality. Some people like really sadistic businessmen can work in that mindset and thrive in it.[5]
Ferraro also remarked that French philosopher Michel Foucault had been an inspiration, saying he was "one thinker I always came back to".[7]
Reed Scott Reid's review of NYC, Hell 3:00 AM for Tiny Mix Tapes expresses similar ideas concerning the cultural value of the music that inspired the album: introducing the review with a quote from Jean Baudrillard's Cool Memories that relates his experience at a Stevie Wonder concert to a "strictly regulated release",[8] Reid went on to say that "afro-diasporic pop culture conceals not a quantization of truth (groove as the soul in motion; humanity as a pattern of similarity), but a radical equivalence between the two processes, the expressive and the imprecise swelling behind the lattice of a timing grid."[4] In the review, he also makes a "corollary speculation" that ties the album's use of rhythm and city imagery to the fixity of Ferraro's idea of a stuck world, stating that "[p]erhaps rhythm does not belong to the foundations of the city. Perhaps the measure of motion is a senseless byproduct of urban performance and exchange. Perhaps rhythm is not a sentence to be sworn, its invocation requiring the acquisition of knowledge and technical mastery, but a crisis to be managed, an ecological condition that needs to be supervised, regulated, and contained."[4]
Music and sound
Alongside its use of orchestral sounds, NYC, Hell 3:00 AM utilizes a range of digital sound design to represent the jarring contrast between frantic nightlife and emotionally flat technology, including conveniences like self-checkouts and ATMs. Cut up samples of news broadcasts, such as those about topics like the
The album also features distinctively used musical samples which demonstrate Ferraro's influences. "Fake Pain" samples vocals from "
In the intro to NYC, Hell 3:00 AM, the segment where a female text-to-speech voice repeatedly says "Money" is followed by an accompaniment of string sections and woodwinds; these "
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM uses heavily manipulated and distorted samples, often
Release and reception
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 74/100[11] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Dummy Mag | 6/10[12] |
Fact | 2.5/5[13] |
HHV | 9.2/10[14] |
Pitchfork | 6.6/10[1] |
Tiny Mix Tapes | [15] |
Uncut | [11] |
On July 4, 2013, the first trailer for the record was released, which a
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM garnered mostly positive reviews from
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM was named by Harper to be the "most beautifully and troublingly convincing account of" the part of New York City that's mostly unheard of.
In a mixed review, Fact magazine's Steve Shaw wrote that NYC, Hell 3:00 AM had many "genuine highs" in the instrumental department; however, the record felt like a "painful hour" entirely due to Ferraro's "achingly, pitifully bad" vocals, which "have no reason to be there, and only serve to question what Ferraro thinks of his audience."[13] Adam Strohm of Dusted magazine wrote that "the album isn’t without moments of levity, but it’s also not a good time." He was also mixed towards Ferraro's singing, writing that while it wasn't horrible, it wasn't for the type of music that is played on the record: "It puts the album in a particular light, one in which NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is either an awkward misstep or a tongue-in-cheek spoof. [...] either way, this isn’t James Ferraro playing to his strengths."[28] Dummy mainly criticized the album for its message, finding it to be "a little obvious" and "gauche": "Ferraro is known for being way ahead of his peers when it comes to identifying and representing shifts in sound and ideology through his music, but with ‘NYC, Hell 3:00AM’ it's as if he's run out of ideas."[12]
Track listing
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Intro" | 2:34 |
2. | "Fake Pain" | 3:19 |
3. | "Qr Jr" | 3:27 |
4. | "Close Ups" | 3:06 |
5. | "Beautiful Jon K." | 4:24 |
6. | "Stuck 1" | 1:29 |
7. | "City Smells" | 5:28 |
8. | "Upper East Side Pussy" | 2:39 |
9. | "Eternal Condition" | 4:11 |
10. | "Stuck 2" | 3:02 |
11. | "Niggas" | 4:56 |
12. | "Stuck 3 (Rats)" | 2:19 |
13. | "Cheek Bones" | 4:45 |
14. | "Vanity" | 5:57 |
15. | "Irreplaceable" | 6:13 |
16. | "Nushawn" | 3:47 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
17. | "N_1" | 0:46 |
18. | "The Escalade" (Instrumental) | 2:40 |
19. | "N_3" | 4:22 |
20. | "N_4" | 3:12 |
21. | "NYC GOD" (Instrumental) | 4:48 |
Release history
Region | Date | Format(s) | Label |
---|---|---|---|
Worldwide | October 15, 2013[21][20] | Hippos in Tanks | |
November 26, 2013[22] | Vinyl
|
References
- ^ Conde Nast. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Coultate, Aaron (July 22, 2013). "James Ferraro readies HELL, NYC 3:00 AM". Resident Advisor. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Adam (November 6, 2013. "Pattern Recognition Vol. 7 : James Ferraro's NYC, Hell 3:00 AM". Electronic Beats. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
- ^ a b c "James Ferraro - NYC, HELL 3:00 AM | Music Review". Tiny Mix Tapes. 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
- ^ SpinMedia. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Snodgrass, Catlin (October 16, 2013). "James Ferraro" Archived 2017-02-02 at the Wayback Machine. Bomb. New Arts Publications, Inc. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ "A LONG GCHAT WITH...James Ferraro - self-titled". Self-Titled. 15 October 2013.
- ISBN 0-86091-283-3.
- ^ Johnson, Jason (October 14, 2013). "Experimental musician James Ferraro on his new album and its relationship with GTA V". Kill Screen. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ Bulut, Selim (December 21, 2015). "James Ferraro: "The amount of burning Priuses that I’ve seen in L.A. is pretty strange."". Dummy. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
- ^ CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Kretowicz, Steph (October 15, 2013). "James Ferraro – ‘NYC, HELL 3:00AM’". Dummy Mag. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
- ^ a b Shaw, Steve (November 1, 2013). "NYC Hell 3AM". Fact. The Vinyl Factory. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Kunze, Philipp (December 5, 2013). "James Ferraro – NYC, Hell 3:00 AM". HHV. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ Scott Reid, Reed. "James Ferraro – NYC, HELL 3:00 AM". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ Mr. P (July 4, 2013). "James Ferraro provides another reason for fireworks: new album NYC, HELL 3:00 AM out in October on Hippos in Tanks". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ Mr P (July 17, 2013). "James Ferraro – NYC, HELL 3:00 AM (trailer #2)". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ Bowe, Miles (July 31, 2013). "Watch James Ferraro’s NYC, HELL 3:00 AM Trailer #3". Stereogum. SpinMedia. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ Bowe, Miles (July 20, 2013). "James Ferraro – "Eternal Condition/Stuck 2″. Stereogum. SpinMedia. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ a b NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (2013) (CD). James Ferraro. Hippos in Tanks. HIT 026.
- ^ a b c "NYC, Hell 3:00AM by James Ferraro". iTunes Store. Apple Inc. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
- ^ a b NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (2013) (Vinyl). James Ferraro. Hippos in Tanks. HIT 026.
- ^ The Wire. January 2014. Issue 359.
- ^ "2013: Favorite 50 Albums of 2013". Tiny Mix Tapes. December 16, 2013. p. 4. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ "VICE's Top 50 Albums of 2013". Vice. December 18, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ "The year’s best RAMjams: 2013’s best overlooked and underground electronic music"[usurped]. Chart Attack. Channel Zero. December 16, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Bath, Tristan (October 18, 2013). "Reviews: James Ferraro: NYC HELL, 3:00 AM". The Quietus. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- ^ Strohm, Adam (December 16, 2013). "James Ferraro – NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (Hippos in Tanks)". Dusted. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
- ^ "ジェイムス・フェラーロ - ニューヨーク・シティ、午前3時の地獄". Discogs.