If there was a soundtrack to living inside of a computer, it may very well be “I Love My Computer.”
Over the 39-minute runtime of Ninajirachi’s debut studio album “I Love My Computer,” the Australian DJ and producer has proved there is no one capable of creating an electronically infested, sonically synthetic soundscape like her.
Ninajirachi wears her relationship with her computer, the internet and technology in general on her sleeve. Her stage name, derived from her real name — Nina Wilson — and her favorite Pokemon — Jirachi — instantly makes it clear the influence of early 2000s technological culture is not to be understated.
This influence — both the positive and negative sides of it — is woven into the fabric of “I Love My Computer.” “iPod Touch,” the second-most streamed song on the LP, directly touches on the music-based nostalgia she feels: “It sounds like high school, front gate, smoke in my face … It sounds like iPod Touch, yellow Pikachu case.” One of the album’s main singles, “Infohazard,” reflects on the first time she saw a snuff film online, which she described as “a rite of passage and loss of innocence moment for people who grew up online” in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine.
“I Love My Computer” reflects on a similar feeling many of us who grew up in the online era have felt. In the same interview with Rolling Stone, Ninajirachi wonders about the possibility of divorcing herself from the seemingly omnipresent reality of technology in the modern era, “If I’d been in high school a hundred years ago, without ever touching a computer, would I even know things like that (snuff film) existed? I can’t ever really forget about it.”
In perhaps the same vein as the omnipresent reality of technology, Ninajirachi’s music on “I Love My Computer” feels all-encompassing. EDM as a genre is typically heavily rooted in place. It is a medium meant to be enjoyed in dark clubs, surrounded by bodies all enjoying the same music you are — perhaps tripping off the same substances as you are. While it’s clear from Ninajirachi’s 11 sold-out U.S. shows thousands of miles away from her hometown that listeners are ready to enjoy the music in that context, “I Love My Computer” is a veritable Swiss-army knife. It is abrasive, booming and intense, but also introspective, grounded and headphones-ready.
The album kicks off with “London Song,” whose introductory gritty synths mimic a computer beginning to start up — and start it does. Ninajirachi lays the groundwork for the rest of the album on “London Song.” The song’s dirt is palpable, with its synths reminiscent of gears grinding and pushing into one another. The song’s chopped up vocals that sing “Anything is possible with fingers, eyes, mouth and a screen” set the theme for Ninajirachi’s technologically inclined lyrics on the whole project.
After seamlessly flowing into the bouncy, light nostalgia of “iPod Touch,” “I Love My Computer” hits its stride. The following three-song run is the album’s apex, delivering some of the most refreshing and innovative electronic music released in recent memory.
On “Fuck My Computer,” Ninajirachi shows her playful, humorous side as she rides punchy synths while her chopped vocals sing about wanting to fuck her computer because “No one in the world knows me better.” While certainly a vulgar and funny take on the consequences of modern technological culture, the concepts Ninajirachi touches on are refreshing to hear covered in a genre that often doesn’t get that personal.
“CSIRAC” is the album’s high point without a doubt. Named after Australia’s first digital computer, which was the first in the world to play digital music, the song distills everything that makes “I Love My Computer” so phenomenal into a 3:21 track. Its choppy vocals guide airy chords to find an ever-growing drum beat that eventually catches on a quick interjection of a melody reminiscent of an error message. Ninajirachi rides this beat until halfway through the song at 1:47, in which she builds to a climax, cuts the sound out completely, only to return with rough, dirty synths that are as catchy as they are intense.
Just like the rest of “I Love My Computer,” Ninajirachi doesn’t stay in one spot for long, as the song slows down into more introspective synth piano chords before seamlessly transitioning into “Delete,” which has some of the best vocals on the entire record. Ninajirachi sings about posting a picture “wearing the shortest skirt in the drawer” just for a crush who she specifically added a song they’ll like for. While she knows she’ll eventually delete it in the morning, she still participates in this “Modern, mega, digital, meta, matin’ ritual” just to show “what you’re missin’ out on.”
Ninajirachi’s specific tracklist calculation is an immensely important part of this project. Nearly every song on the album ties directly into the next, almost allowing the producer to DJ each listen no matter where or when the album is being played. This is especially evident on the album’s short, minutelong interlude that builds plucking guitars and vocal samples into a house beat that cascades into “All I Am,” which uses the same vocal samples for a longer, bass-heavy track.
Even the project’s low point, “Sing Good” isn’t all that low of a low point; it just feels out of place next to the other . By far the most introspective track on the album, Ninajirachi slows down to reflect on her lifelong love for music and constant desire to learn how to make it. She sings of Googling music terms and writing songs in class, always finding a desire to try and make music even if she “can’t really sing good.”
The album closes out with “All At Once.” The longest track on the record, “All At Once” begins with a flurry of high-attack drums that make way for climactic end to “I Love My Computer.” The track is aggressive and unrelenting to begin, but after two minutes a softer electronic melody emerges from the background and a choppy vocal loop of “All at all, at once, once, once, once, all at once” carries it to the last third. The final two minutes of the track contain the final vocals of the project, which ramp up from submerged to in-your-face as Ninajirachi delivers her final message on the intoxicating, addictive electronic world she’s created and lived in for 39 minutes: “Always at the desk in the dark / Made the screen go blue when I took it too far.”
Reach Willow Engle at entertainment@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
