Overtly political with the aesthetic of an old school arcade, London’s truthscan regurgitates years of pent up societal rage into “This Is Not About You.” The underlying beat sounds like a video game where the protagonist dodges 16-bit bullets, then truthscan begins to rattle off a laundry list of societal deplorables:
“Science denying, climate frying, facebook climate lying, book stop buying (sic - its bump stop buying - ts), red pill popping, Brexit propping…” The song’s unending refrain repeats again and again: “This Is Not About You This Is Not About You.” The song works up to its core manifesto, a conversation between the speaker and Alexa about the shattered nature of truth in the modern age. If you can make people doubt everything, then you can make them believe anything, and turn truth into such a subjective thing that anyone can be swayed to your way of thinking. Does truth even exist anymore?
A short piano riff plays at the end of the song, and we realize we have reached the end of the track and it is game over. Produced entirely on analog equipment with an aesthetic that rejects the digital age, truthscan are part of a global movement fearful of the direction the work is hurtling towards in the digital age.
