James Krivchenia

James Krivchenia (drummer and producer of Big Thief) releases a new single, “The Science of Imaginary Solutions,” from his forthcoming album Blood Karaoke out April 15th on Reading Group. Following lead single “Emissaries of Creation,” “The Science of Imaginary Solutions” only furthers the breadth of Krivchenia’s sonic palette. It’s a chaotic blend of heavy guitar, glitchy techno, and ambient noises that are wet to the touch. “Everytime I come back to the record, ‘The Science of Imaginary Solutions’ always actually shocks me a bit in a good way,” says Krivchenia. “It feels like a good representation of Blood Karaoke as a whole.”

Driving through a near-constant barrage of sound and information, Blood Karaoke passes through zones of hardcore techno, poptimistic kitsch cruisers and deeply weird YouTube ambience. The album is composed mostly from hundreds of tiny samples of unwatched YouTube videos found through random online generators (such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations, video game walkthroughs, old local news clips, etc), mangled midi fed into Krivchenia’s rig of synthesizers and pedals, and then meticulously layered and collaged. The result is a private dance record appropriate for the overstimulated weirdness of our world. Blood Karaoke often sounds like an experiment in accepting the disparate sounds and feelings of our world, online and otherwise, and trying to find the poetry contained within the chaos.

Krivchenia is a many-armed sculptor of music capable of deconstructing and rebuilding the auditory world around him. Known primarily for his roles in Big Thief, Mega Bog (as longtime engineer, co-producer and percussionist), and his various other groups and session work (ranging from Causings to Taylor Swift), Krivchenia has been quietly building strange musical worlds in parallel with his own experimental records. You’re Useless, I Love You (2016), No Comment (2018), and A New Found Relaxation (2020) show an increasing clarity of intentional framing while never sacrificing the material joy of making music.