BOSTON—A federal court unsealed a shocking transcript Tuesday detailing how the Krill Secret Language album campaign allegedly compromised the global music economy. The prosecution argues that the Boston indie rock band collaborated with music journalists to artificially inflate the cultural value of math-rock neuroses. The following is an excerpt from the cross-examination of Rusty Calhoun, retired stadium acoustician and founder of Dads Against Bass, who served as the government’s lead expert witness on the secret codes hidden within the new single 'Dominate.'
Q: Mr. Calhoun, can you describe what happened when you analyzed the audio files for the Krill Secret Language album?
A: It was terrifying. We ran the guitar tracks through our standard decibel filters. The frequencies did not contain music. They contained a highly concentrated, weaponized form of early-2010s Brooklyn nostalgia.
Q: And how does this relate to the phenomenon known as indie poptimism?
A: The defense wants you to believe that indie poptimism died in 2015. But our data shows otherwise. Major labels used the Stereogum editorial department as a Trojan horse. They fed complex, scrappy guitar riffs to twenty-something writers to make thirty-something editors feel ancient and desperate.
Q: Are you saying the Krill Secret Language album was a psychological operation?
A: Yes. We found encrypted metadata in the track 'Dominate.' When decoded, it literally reads: 'Your knees hurt because you are thirty-four, not because of the weather.' It is a coordinated attack on the millennial demographic.
Q: Who authorized this operation?
A: The highest levels of the industry. I am talking about Spotify playlist curators. I am talking about the people who manufacture oversized canvas tote bags. They needed a cult sensation to reboot the guitar economy, and they used these Boston boys to do it.
At press time, the defense counsel successfully suppressed a piece of evidence containing a 2013 Tumblr post, fearing it would cause the entire jury to instantly crumble into dust.
