SEMIBEGUN 019: THIS MACHINE AIN’T HAUNTED BY ANYTHING BUT MAN

 

Air Date: July 5, 2023

Co-hosted by composer and artist Becky Brown, this episode explores historical and emerging artistic practices involving computer-generated music and artificial intelligence technologies. A realization of Beethoven’s unfinished symphony, Barack Obama singing an Ice Spice verse, and “relaxing jazz” generated from text: this non-exhaustive but occasionally exhausting collection of music touches many sonic associations with AI technologies. Sometimes artifact-laden, formally abrupt, uncanny, austere, speculative, and humorously absurd, creative potentials and limitations fold in on themselves.

TRACKS

  1. Emily Howell – From Darkness, Light
    II. Fugue

  2. Becky Brown & Rifftronic – dept store muzak #1

  3. MusicLM – Long Generation Text Prompt: “relaxing jazz”

  4. Skygge – One Note Samba (feat. generated vocals from The Pirouettes)

  5. Shimon the Robot & Friends – What You Say (live at the Kennedy Center)

  6. Lejaren Hillier & the Illiac Computer – excerpt from Illiac Suite For String Quartet

  7. Frank Sinatra & OpenAI – It's Hot Tub Time

  8. dadabots – Deep the Beatles!
    evolution 1 (iteration 2751)
    evolution 4 (iteration 11001)
    evolution 11 (iteration 30251)
    evolution 18 (iteration 49501)
    evolution 22 (iteration 60501)

  9. Sony CSL & Flow Machines – Daddy’s Car (in the style of the Beatles)

  10. Botnik Studios – You Can’t Take My Door

  11. AIVA – Country Breeze

  12. Holly Herndon – Frontier

  13. Yona – Oblivious

  14. The Gregory Brothers – Boy's a liar Pt. 2 (Biden & Obama's Version)

  15. TravisBott – JACK PARK CANNY DOPE MAN

  16. MirageFM – Bliss

  17. MusicLM – Story Mode Text Prompt Example #3:
    “    jazz song (0:00-0:15)
    pop song (0:15-0:30)
    rock song (0:30-0:45)
    death metal song (0:45-1:00)
    rap song (1:00-1:15)
    string quartet with violins (1:15-1:30)
    epic movie soundtrack with drums (1:30-1:45)
    scottish folk song with traditional instruments (1:45-2:00)”

  18. Jennifer Walshe – Carlo Gesualdo: “Io Parto” e non più dissi, Madrigal from A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1 - Ancient to Renaissance

  19. Iannis Xenakis – Analogique A and B

  20. Beethoven X: The AI Project (performed by Beethoven Orchestra Bonn)
    III. Scherzo. Allegro - Trio
    IV. Rondo (feat. Cameron Carpenter)