(is) in a River
A solo album exploring human-machine improvisation with AI and tape delay systems
Oslo-based jazz-musician and researcher Jonas Sjøvaag presents (is) in a river, a solo album of improvised performances created with two custom-built python software systems: TapePlayer, an advanced tape echo simulator, and MusicHal_9001, an AI music system. Each of the four tracks was recorded as single takes at Færder Audio studio, with no edits or added overdubs.
The album documents Sjøvaag's ongoing exploration of improvisation with technological partners. TapePlayer listens to, and feeds, the sound of the performer through variable-length tape loops from the room and back into it, creating an ever-shifting sonic environment. MusicHal_9001 listens and responds in real time, functioning as a machine improviser, and was built (like TapePlayer) by Sjøvaag.
Its musical overview, or capabilities if you will, comes from a dataset based on six recordings from Sjøvaag’s own practice – it was produced in a pre-training session using the trainer script titled Chandra_trainer. Like its live counterpart, MusicHal_9001, it analyzes input – extracting pitch, rhythm, timbre, context and 764 more dimensions unknown, or uncomprehensible, to mankind, before storing its findings as a JSON file. This file is therefore the brain, or main pool of musical knowledge, and is what allows MusicHal_9001 to musick in real time, and, in short, respond to input by drawing on patterns found in the training material rather than following pre-programmed rules.
The result is a system that functions more like a listening improviser than a playback machine: it has no fixed score, only a kind of synthesized musical insight. The names are a deliberate nod to HAL 9000, the AI antagonist of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. As many will know, HAL famously turned against its human collaborators, and although MusicHal_9001 is built around the opposite premise, to provide an expansive systemic jolt in a session of musical creation, and not to replace anything, the satisfying quirkiness of its responses is really the reason for taking pleasure in listening to this album.
Together, these systems transform the solo performance into a dialogue between human, machine, and acoustic space. The machines respond to each other's output as well as to Sjøvaag's live playing.
Sjøvaag performs clarinet, guitar, and rohrglockenspiel across the four tracks, each configuration revealing different possibilities within the human-machine relationship.
Tracklist:
- Carnival (10:23) – clarinet, MusicHal_9001, TapePlayer
- (got the) Green Blues (10:34) – guitar, MusicHal_9001, TapePlayer
- Ding-Dong II (10:35) – clarinet, MusicHal_9001
- Prairie (11:31) – rohrglockenspiel, TapePlayer
All compositions by Jonas Sjøvaag. Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Færder Audio. Album artwork by Supremeconnection.no.