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I recently read a post from some tech bro that claimed that the era of streaming music was over, because AI music would soon wipe out the need for any kind of human-made music. Just tell the agent what kind of music you like and mood you're in, he said, and exactly what you were looking for would be automatically generated.
I can't think of anything that sounds less appealing.
The new album by Master Boot Record, Computer Metal, was created with the computer as the primary instrument. But, as the band is quick to point out, every note on this heavy chiptune album was composed and guided by a human. Master Boot Record is the project of multi-instrumentalist Vittorio D’Amore, and while the music on Computer Metal is primarily electronic, you can always hear the human heart that guided its creation.
Sonically, what makes Computer Metal feel human despite its electronic origins is the live guitar that lives side by side with the computer-generated audio, which was written via MIDI in Cubase. The guitar feels organic and energetic, bringing a living energy to the album's 10 tracks. D'Amore is clearly a talented musician who incorporates many different styles and subgenres into the mix over the course of the album. Despite the limited range of instruments (and "instruments") on the record, there's a wide range of sounds on Computer Metal, including digitized versions of prog metal, thrash, death metal, and symphonic metal. Tracks like "BOOT SECTOR" let the real guitar come to the forefront, while songs like the single "PLUG AND PLAY" embrace a fist-pumping racing video game soundtrack vibe - there is an associated game to play at thetadivision.com.
What really separates this album from AI-generated music, however, is its very concept. AI will try to make music that sounds convincingly like humans made it, the tech bros tell us. It may be able to imitate chiptune music, but only genuine human creativity can invent in in the first place.
I don't spend a lot of time with chiptune music, and while there are many artists in the subgenre making interesting art, my problem with a lot of electronic music is that it simply feels cold to me. That's not a problem for Computer Music. Across its brisk 42-minute runtime, the album is great fun. It is energetic and catchy, and never feels sterile. The live, virtuosic guitar gets a lot of the credit on that front, and is a clear reminder that in a time of machines masquerading as humans, Master Boot Record are humans masquerading as machines. That humanity comes through, and that's what makes the difference. And no matter how advanced AI becomes, that humanity is something it will never be able to replicate.
Master Boot Record's Computer Metal is out October 30 via Metal Blade Records