Recent accelerations in technology, such as the internet and AI, have not only presented us with new possibilities and potential for making music, but they have also given the more innovative music makers new themes for their songs. Richard Evans not only embraces such digital progress to build his songs, but his latest album, Quantum, discusses the potential and possible pitfalls of artificial intelligence.
Quantum is, in part, an album exploring the story of LaMDA, an AI made by Google that believed itself to be sentient, in part a wider sonic musing on how such technologies are shaping our lives – the way we work, the way we communication, the way we make war even, and every other aspect of who we are.
His music glides on electro-cinematic waves, synths sound surfing, his beats often just delicate markers, his bass sounds propulsive pulses. Previous single, “Aidoru” bubbles with liquid sonics, echoing both back to the birth of the synthesizer sound and projecting forward along its logical path to create music not only of the future but about the future.
Some songs drift along on layers of ambient sound woven thick enough to pull them into more melodic realms, such as “Gravity,” there are songs such as “Born Perfect,” a philosophical discussion of slavery, programming, and subserviance, and themes that are poignant and still relevant to the human world. There are also room for energetic dream-dance pieces such as “Make Believe.”
Richard Evans has always made intelligent music, but there is something especially poignant here: music only made possible because of the forward movement of technology, yet warning us about where this might take us. How deliciously ironic!
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