“I was once a performance artist. But more pressing questions – both theoretical and practical ones – began to haunt me. What does it mean to be real? What comes after the annihilation of capitalism? How do we get there together? I wished no longer to only explore questions. I wished, suddenly, to answer them. So I became a folklorist.
Releases:
LIVINGSTON: Artificially Intelligent Folk Songs of Canada
Featuring work produced by the sentient database LIVINGSTON, Artificially Intelligent Folk Songs of Canada, Vol. 1 is the culmination of years of research in both Canadian folklore and computer science. What if we had a digital machine that could access the entirety of Canadian folk music and generate new yet hyper-authentic compositions from the source data? Thanks to this exciting collaboration between Canadian song collector Dr.Henry Adam Svec (The CFL Sessions, Folk Songs of Canada Now) and Czech programmer Mirek Plíhal (Všechny Milí Lidé), there is no longer any need to wonder.
An intelligent archive is already an achievement. Yet, LIVINGSTON only producestranscriptions of words and melodies, and so our engineers also needed to put together a band. Fronted by Svec himself and featuring Misha Bower (Bruce Peninsula), Marshall Bureau (Octoberman, The Pinecones), J.J. Ipsen (Hayden, Jim Guthrie), Andrew Penner (Sunparlour Players), and more, these human musicians have breathed life into LIVINGSON’s brilliantly cold calculations; from rough hollers and stomps to smooth-country croons, from the sparse sounds of the field to the sparkle of Andy Magoffin’s House of Miracles Studio, Artificially Intelligent Folk Songs of Canada, Vol. 1 documents the limits and possibilities of Canadian folksong—a record as wide and as varied as our land and/or the internet.
Download the music for free or for money via www.folksingularity.com, where you can also access tour dates and the FAQ, and stay tuned for Vol. 2 (sung by Olenka Krakus) and Vol. 3 (sung by Mathias Kom).
There is probably much left for me to learn. But this archive is the fruit of my first song-collecting journey across Canada, and I have given it for you.
In solidarity,
Henry Adam Svec”
Click on the picture to enter http://www.folksongsofcanadanow.com/ For project info and download