I wish I could burp on command. Then I would able to belch an enlightened response to one Mr. Anthony Fantano, who successfully burped a 4-minute video review of this album. I personally find Cease & Desist to be much more high-brow, worthy of at least a few farts, knuckle cracks, and a bit of that sound you can make by opening your mouth and rapidly jiggling the skin on the front of your neck.
Of course, it’s all in the spirit of the man behind Blarf, Eric Andre. The absurdist humor specialist has starred in his eponymous show on Adult Swim for several years, and has now seen fit to produce this plunderphonic odyssey behind his Ronald McDonald-esque alter ego.
Is this whole thing a joke? Yes. Does it have any artistic merit whatsoever? Suprisingly, also yes. Cease & Desist is, somehow, a smartly-curated conglomeration of samples that manage to congeal into an intensely intriguing sequence of sound. When you have the beginning of the Super Mario Bros. theme kicking things off, a snippet of a judgmental Katie Couric interview with Lil’ Wayne, and a significantly sped up Jimi Hendrix song all working together, you know that you’ve accomplished something worthwhile.
Besides being a smart assortment of samples, Cease & Desist also functions as a bleeding satire of the sampling practice itself, as well as a big “fuck you” to copyright laws. The only thing it fails at is being the true musical shitpost it was intended to be, since it actually kind of works as a cohesive artistic idea.
At the heart of Cease & Desist is “I Worship Satan,” a 13-minute blanket of moderately abrasive harsh noise, with just a little bit of the “Reading Rainbow” theme as the icing on the cake. This track is when elements of J Dilla are replaced with elements of Merzbow, and it’s a delicious transition.
On Pitchfork’s “Over/Under,” Blarf himself described the album as “unlistenable,” but that really only applies to the Pitchfork readers who truly believe that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is actually a 10 or that Modest Mouse is the greatest band of all time. To the more cultured among us, Cease & Desist is exactly the album that Eric Andre was meant to make, it would behoove us to recognize his success.
Ryan’s Score: 8.0
Listen Here: Blarf – Cease & Desist
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