Big Data, ‘The Stroke of Return’ – Free MP3 Download

When the Postal Service released ‘Give Up’ a decade ago, the fact that Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello mailed the building blocks for the album’s 10 songs back and forth was noteworthy. It still is, but only because the pen-pals method behind their music already seems outdated.

Big Data is another duo that passes the pieces of its songs back and forth, only Daniel Armbruster and Alan Wilkis use the Internet to create songs between Rochester and Brooklyn. (The pair collaborated in person to write lyrics and record vocals.)

This is probably not as notable, considering we now take for granted the ability to have entire conversations almost instantaneously with people anywhere in the world, but what is interesting about Big Data is that this self-proclaimed band “from the Internet” creates music about distrusting the very technology that make their partnership possible. Of course, this isn't the first time artists have used irony as a form of social critique.

Check out today's free MP3, ‘The Stroke of Return,’ a track from the electronic duo’s debut EP, ‘1.0.' The deceptively perky tune tricks you into thinking you’re listening to a song about sunshine, when actually, the duo are criticizing a culture that still believes in the notion of Internet privacy.

“‘The Stroke of Return’ weaves together religious and technological imagery over a bed of intricately layered and pulsating synths,” the band tells Diffuser.fm. “The song examines the blind faith and trust that humanity places in the Internet, that we are all in some sense kneeling before the altar of the Cloud.”