I have long postulated that we have crossed an irreversible threshold in music creation.
The laptop and associated technology has freed individuals from the social constraints of being in a band, constantly compromising individual ideals for the good of the group.
Now anyone can make the exact music they want; as imagined by them, as controlled by them, as produced/promoted/distributed by them.
This has resulted in a veritable glut of terrific, dazzlingly original and gorgeously individual music: just cast your attention towards ANBAD alumni Mmoths, D/R/U/G/S, Mujuice et al.
Life, however, works to a pattern as predictable as the ticking of a clock. Everything refines itself to the nth degree eventually.
And now, we have left even the individual behind, and are entering the realm of musician-less music; the new-band-less new band of the day.
Darwin Tunes is part musical project, part scientific experiment set in motion by two professors: Doctor Bob and Professor Armand, from the Imperial College London.
The idea is simple: an algorithm randomly generates electronic noises. They are voted upon by anonymous listeners. The pleasant sounds survive and mutate with other sounds (to form other, more pleasant loops of sound), and the unpleasant sounds wither and die out.
So what begins as slightly atonal muddled noodling at 150 generations of evolution becomes a sprightly pop nugget at 900 generations, and ends up as a full-blown, carefully paced, near-modernist electronic jabbering at 3520 generations.
Throw in some reverb or other FX and it could sit alongside any number of new electronic tracks I receive every day.
My art teacher used to tell me to “look for mistakes” when painting – the rationale being that within errors lies the randomness of natural beauty that the conscious mind is unable to bring to art. Darwin Music is the same idea, writ large.
Don’t even try to resist. This is the future, like it or not. And it’s surprisingly beautiful.
