With Death Jokes, for the first time since the project's
incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations
of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself, and out sharply
towards the world. The album is also a drastic turn musically
and thematically, rooted in the electronic music of raves and of
rap music he grew up with but never imagined himself able to
make, playing like a scathing electronic essay on America’s
culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism.
The work on Death Jokes began just weeks before the first word
of the pandemic came in the winter of 2019; it was completed
three years later as we began to emerge from the worst. The
album's meaning morphed as the pandemic went on, first a
reflection on our attachment to form, and to ourselves, and
then shifting into a solemn indictment of our culture’s blind
spots as we misjudge and attack, veiled self-centeredness and
self-importance masquerading as morality.