REVIEWS
“Every single technical component of our smart devices can be and will be, used and repurposed to identify and track us,” says conceptual artist and electronic musician Jasmine Guffond. “One significant technological development is the proliferation of smart assistants. Amazon has sold more than 100 million Alexa devices and a quarter of U.S. adults own a smart speaker. These devices are forever listening. We’ve invited surveillance as a service into our homes.” This theme of surveillance is an integral part of Guffond’s new album, Microphone Permission. A surprisingly seductive blend of ambient, classical and gently pulsating techno influences, the album is a bold exploration of our evolving relationship to technology.
John Thorp, Bandcamp Daily Feature https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/jasmine-guffond-feature
This spring, Vienna’s experimental label for “new punk computer music,” Editions Mego, releases an anxiety-inducing record by Australian-born, Berlin-based sound artist Jasmine Guffond. Aptly titled, Microphone Permission addresses the supposed consent users give to smartphones for algorithmic eavesdropping, sonifying the tools of digital surveillance in real time as they extract, store, and monitor one’s personal information. Drawing listeners into a paranoid, data-driven soundscape where influences of drone, minimal electronic, and noise music give way to ambient club, Guffond provides an experiential platform for these ubiquitous, invasive, and otherwise undetectable processes. As mass corporate data-mining and government monitoring blur the distinction between private and public, Microphone Permission questions what space remains for the ungovernable and disruptive.
Kristen Kubecka, Bomb Magazine https://bombmagazine.org/articles/jasmine-guffonds-microphone-permission/