How a sci-fi dystopia became a personal utopia (ft. Arc Iris)

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music, Music Commentary, Music History

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A sci-fi ballet imagined a 2080 where AI strips people of purpose, and the day before its New York premiere, an actual dystopia arrived. Arc Iris, the trio of Jocie Adams, Zach Tenorio and Ray Belli, built iTMRW as a concept record set in a future ruled by a mega-corporation that shares its name. In its world, AI has taken most jobs and even the thinking left inside them, so the corporation offers pods where anyone can live any dream in virtual reality. The piece premiered in Cambridge in January 2020, then its New York show collapsed the day before the lockdown. What follows is the story of a project that outlasted its own premise. When venues closed, they left Providence for Los Angeles, rebuilt a dilapidated house, spent eight months in a 120-square-foot shed, and constructed their own studio and stage. The dystopia they wrote became, in their telling, a personal utopia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Dell PCs with Intel and side are built for the moments you plan, and the ones you don't.
0:05.9	For the time you forgot your charger at the gate.
0:08.2	Passengers, we are now on our initial ascent.
0:10.6	Or when you're bouncing between projects like a ping pong ball.
0:13.9	We build PCs with long-lasting battery life so you're not scrambling for a charger.
0:18.6	And built-in intelligence so you can stay focused on whatever you're doing.
0:22.4	Dell Technologies, built for you.
0:24.4	Dell.com.uk forward slash Dell PCs.
0:29.8	Every week, switched on pop opens with a wind-up of tape loops, layers of vocals,
0:34.2	and some very funky mogs at the sizes.
0:44.3	Music layers of vocals and some very funky moog synthesizers. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. That is our show's Sonic
0:48.0	Identity that we documented on episode 401. We called it the biggest theme song fail. We gave our
0:54.0	very outdated theme a little glow up
0:55.8	with the help of musicians Jossie Adams and Zach Tenario.
0:59.8	Jossi and Zach, alongside drummer Ray Belli,
1:02.2	are in a band together called Ark Iris.
1:04.3	They've been around as a group pretty much as long
1:06.0	as we've been a podcast.
1:07.4	They're genuinely some of the most talented musicians
1:09.6	I've ever known and are a deep
1:11.5	source of inspiration to me. Since you hear them every week on the show, I wanted to give you a
1:16.0	chance to get to know Jossie and Zach through some of their music, music that has helped me find
	...

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