Marc Barreca's Music Works for Industry is a layered assertion. An economic mantra for the mind to spin, like the many loops on this recording, or churn, as gears of some godhead machine. From the pool of playful compositions, a social subtext appears - a somewhat sardonic riposte to the commercial and cynical abuse of music and musicians. The work profits the listener over industry. Said another way, its motivations are more generative than lucrative. No longer than four minutes, no shorter than two, each piece on MWFI is a fragment of modern life. Propaganda transmitted between the click of the remote or the turn of the dial. Friend and collaborator K. Leimer checks Cluster, Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, and Morton Subotnick as esoteric influences on MWFI in the album's liner notes, while one might imagine Upton Sinclair, Studs Terkel, or Chris Anderson as egalitarian influences. Made with musicians, performance artists, and a bespoke instrument maker, Barreca combines multiple disciplines into a collective, industrious whole. An experiment fabricated in the synth and tape studio at the artist-run alternative space and/or (Seattle's version of NYC's The Kitchen), Barreca manipulates dynamic sound sources into tidy, minimal arrangements using synthesizers, modified instruments, tape looped voices, and melodic, metallic phrases. Even in post-industrial times, Barreca's music offers listeners easily consumable musings on current work conditions.
