In 2018, you can’t go more than five feet in any direction without seeing some kind of device. Smartphones, tablets and laptops are everywhere. It’s one of the many perks—and disadvantages—of living in the socalled “information age.” Livetronica staples Papadosio take a deepdive on this idea in Content Coma, their follow-up to 2016’s Pattern Integrities and sixth album overall. Even the album’s cover features people bathed in the light of their phones, taking selfies and reading the always unpredictable news. Listening to Content Coma ’s 12 tracks, you can hear the white noise of technology quite clearly. The main electronic riff of “Distress Signal,” for example, sounds like it was hijacked from an Aphex Twin record. The following tune, “Liminal Daybreak,” on the other hand, is more downtempo, laced with emotive guitar lines and angelic synthesizers. In the jamtronica genre, it’s always a balance between the electronic and the organic, so tackling humanity’s dependence on technology while still effectively using electronic tools is a tall order. The sweeping instrumental “Skipswitch” seems to hit that sweet spot. As one of the record’s longer tracks, clocking in at just under six minutes, it tells a story with hard-edged tech sounds, delicate guitar lines and the lingering tensions between the two. It’s unclear if the band is fully condemning technology on Content Coma —after all, they did utilize the collaborative music app Splice to make most of this record. And without the space-age sounds that they’re known for, Papadosio wouldn’t be Papadosio. “The internet has made me smarter than you. I’ve looked it up and I’m certain it’s true,” vocalist/guitarist Anthony Thogmartin sings on “The World Is a Cube.” The song shines a light on the insidious kind of misinformation that permeates cyberspace. Sure, disconnecting from technology is damn near impossible, but perhaps acknowledging the murky intersection of humanity and our electronic companions is the first step.