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Lawrence English: Cruel Optimism - VINYL LPTitle: Cruel Optimism Artist: Lawrence English Label: Room40 Product Type: VINYL LP UPC: 739027481867 Genre: Electronic Release Date: 2017 03 10 Number of Discs: 1 LP version. "Cruel Optimism is a record that considers power (present and absent). It meditates on how power consumes, augments, and ultimately shapes two subsequent human conditions: obsession and fragility. This edition owes it's title and it's origins to the wonderful text of the same
Title: Cruel OptimismArtist: Lawrence English
Label: Room40
Product Type: VINYL LP
UPC: 739027481867
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 2017-03-10
Number of Discs: 1
LP version. "Cruel Optimism is a record that considers power (present and absent). It meditates on how power consumes, augments, and ultimately shapes two subsequent human conditions: obsession and fragility.... This edition owes it's title and it's origins to the wonderful text of the same name by American theorist Lauren Berlant.... In Cruel Optimism, I found a number of critical readings around the issues that have fueled so much of the music I have been making recently. Beyond her keen analysis of the relations of attachment as they pertain to conditions of possibility in the everyday, it was particularly her writing around trauma I found deeply affecting. It was a jumping off point from which a plague of unsettling impressions of suffering, intolerance, and ignorance could be unpacked and utilized as fuel over and above pointless frustration. When I made Wilderness Of Mirrors (RM 460CD/LP, 2014) clouds of unease were overhead. As I have worked through Cruel Optimism, what seemed an unimaginable future just a few years prior, began to present as actual. Over the course of creating the record, we collectively bore witness to a new wave of humanitarian and refugee crisis (captured so succinctly in the photograph of Alan Kurdi's tiny body motionless on the shore), the Black Lives Matter movement, the widespread use of sonic weapons on civilians, increased drone strikes in Waziristan, Syria and elsewhere, and record low numbers of voting around Brexit and the US election cycle, suggesting a wider sense of disillusionment and powerlessness. Acutely for me and other Australians, we've faced dire intolerance concerning race and continued inequalities related to gender and sexuality. The storm has broken and feels utterly visceral. Cruel Optimism is a meditation on these challenges and an encouragement to press forward towards more profound futures. Beyond the motivations forging the record, the process by which this edition was created was unlike many of my other records. Having worked largely alone in recent years, I wanted to shift away from that approach.... I count myself exceptionally fortunate to have been able to call on so many fine musicians in the making of this album.... I couldn't be more pleased to share Cruel Optimism with you." -Lawrence English, October 2016 Contributions in various forms from: Mats Gustafsson, Mary Rapp, Tony Buck, Chris Abrahams, Werner Dafeldecker, Norman Westberg, Brodie McAllister, Australian Voices, Vanessa Tomlinson, Heinz Riegler, and Thor Harris.
Tracks:
1.1 Hard Rain
1.2 The Quietest Shore
1.3 Hammering a Screw
1.4 Crow
1.5 Requiem for a Reaper
1.6 Pillar of Cloud
1.7 Exquisite Human Microphone
1.8 Object of Projection
1.9 Negative Drone
1.10 Somnambulist
1.11 Moribund Territories
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4.3 ★★★★★
Based on 30 reviews
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 5
Excellent
Format: Hardcover
Excellent reading and colorful
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2025
★★★★★ 5
Wonderful book for Children
Format: Kindle
Great read and lots of great lessons for children and wonderful illustrations. Very well written. I highly recommend this book.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2025
★★★★★ 5
Wonderful depiction of the city & finding gratitude
Format: Hardcover
I bought this book after moving my young family from SF to a very homogeneous suburb. Rode MUNI with my kids & at the time didn’t realize how diversity is taught passively when it’s all around you. Fast forward, my kiddo makes a comment in preschool that shocks me & realize that she’s now in such a bubble. This book is clearly nostalgic for me, but for my kids it’s a chance to talk about all the different lives people live. A chance to talk about race, culture, homelessness, privilege (riding the bus instead of a car, not having a music player), people with disabilities, etc.
To those who choose to post about the grammar In this book, good authors work very hard on depicting dialects, which are 100% a part of one’s culture. Take the opportunity to discuss the diversity that exists in language too. My goodness, white people from Boston add & delete Rs like crazy (Cubar instead of Cuba, ca’ instead of car). 🙃
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Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2020
★★★★★ 5
Great story and wonderful pictures
I’ve been trying to find books my son (6) would enjoy reading. He's asked me to read this one to him every night for like a week now. It’s a sweet story and the illustrations are beautiful. I’m really glad I bought it.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2025
★★★★★ 4
nice but not preschool
Format: Hardcover
nice but not for preschool, perhaps older children to really understand the content
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2025
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