This latest single from Toddy Tang opens up all sorts of discussions about the use of AI in music. I know certain people will automatically shy away, saying that such technologies have no place in music-making, but their forebears said the same about sampling, synths, and the digital revolution, hip-hop and rock and roll, and, if you go back far enough, the electrification of guitars, the invention of the saxophone, and even the argument that the piano is just a crude and ugly replacement for the harpsichord. So let’s take much notice of them.
Toddy Tang, itself a creative persona, but let’s not get into the masks we make for ourselves and the freedom of expression they afford, conceives, writes, composes, arranges, and builds the song’s core and only then pushes some aspects of the music through those AI technologies. They are a tool, just like anything else found in the musician’s work sphere. And why shouldn’t someone use any and every tool available in the sonic tool kit!
And of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes, and here Toddy Tang offers us a sumptuous digital dessert indeed. Hushed late-night vibes, spacious beats, beguiling atmospheres, precise pulses of bass, and a seductive vocal muse on how we become rooted to a set course through life and what happens when that future collapses. Its cinematic path is perfect for lyrics that are at times philosophical and poetic, pop-aware, deep and meaningful, and the suggestion that our perceived worlds often collapse with a “not a bang but a whimper.” Hushed, intimately delivered wisdom.
The result is a gorgeous song, and anyone who worries about how Toddy Tang got there rather than about how wonderful the song ‘April Apocalypse’ is should go back to breaking 19th-century weaving machines or burning disco records! The future is not theirs; the future belongs to people like Toddy Tang.
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