August 12, 2020 on RateYourMusic.
Release: Version of Ye tietia wo so (Josh Laryea, year unknown) on Spotify from extremely bitrotted disc)
I came across Ye tietia wo so by chance, trying to document an emerging bitcrushed internet genre of mostly trap and trance that seems to have emerged in 2018. You can imagine my surprise and intrigue, then, seeing a 2013 (or 2011, if you trust Spotify) gospel release on Rush_43's ☆¥¥//cRu$h3d\\¥¥☆ list sandwiched between Rare RCB hexD.mp3 (the legend, the paragon of bitmyst) and Crushed. lovelyanimal's quick explanation (currently the only review on the page) honestly made me feel like an animal with how excitingly... bizarre it was even in concept. A super bitrotted gospel CD being put up on streaming, officially, and hard to find in its uncorrupted form?
It doesn't disappoint. Ye tietia wo so really is wildly interesting. I'm not going to say it's good -- it's fairly plain and mediocre. But I revel in its existence, even if I don't particularly enjoy it musically. And the plainness adds to it, I think. It's mysterious in how... mundane yet rare it is.
It looks and sounds like any other mediocre, obscure CD by someone that's supposedly a "household name" somewhere far away that you would find and pass up at any yard sale or small town Goodwill -- or even in your garage, even though no one remembers where it came from -- that would be bitrotted to hell and back. We've all seen and listened to this CD, even if it wasn't this CD.
But that experience doesn't exist much on streaming, and it's an experience that's mostly going away as CDs disappear from our lives. And so it becomes kind of nostalgic... And the way the distortion lifts over time, like a memory coming back from years ago, faintly, too...
I hope they never replace the official uploads with the original, non-distorted version (though I'm sure Mr. Laryea's apparently large Ghanian Christian fanbase would appreciate a normal upload somewhere, too). It captures something so unique that I think I'm going to miss from the age of physical media.
I just want it to still exist somewhere.