Liner Notes for an AI EP
I made this textual AI EP to experiment with AI as a creative medium.
My earlier Low AI album series had revealed a possibility I wanted to explore further. Something felt unfinished. The behavior of a sustained session, especially its recurrences, distortions, atmosphere, and unexpected turns, could become its own material. I wanted to work inside those conditions and see what I could make.
Like the classic remix EPs of the past, I took earlier writing and used musical directions and a compositional protocol prompt to produce five textual remixes. The sources included articles and a research paper. The results surprised me. “Standing Waves” found the Arthur Baker “Dancing in the Dark” feel I wanted. “Unreliable Witness” acquired an emotional power I had not anticipated. “Prudent AI” started dancing.
A new line appeared during the work: “The answer bends around it.” Later, I could hear it across the whole release.
The first attempt on “Standing Waves” had not been a promising start. I asked for a remix “radio cut.” The AI produced a shorter, orderly, generic blog post. It had preserved the argument and lost much of the reason to read it. I wanted to give the material another life.
I started by asking AI to “take a big swing” at a first draft. Musical references became ways to intervene. “Make it more dub.” “Find the drummer’s pocket.” I did not need to specify precisely how those instructions should translate into prose. I needed to encounter the changes the directions brought and decide what to do next.
We made versions, compared them, and changed conditions. Earlier takes remained available. A cut could be reversed. A failed experiment could expose an assumption. An unexpected phrase could redirect the piece. As the work developed, I might ask for a different word or reverse the order of two sentences.
The sessions acquired enough history that I could leave more unsaid. They also acquired habits and attractive accounts of what we supposedly had accomplished. The experience of a long AI session began emerging in the tracks themselves.
1. Standing Waves — Carry-Forward Mix
This is where I hear Arthur Baker’s “Dancing in the Dark” most clearly. “Six or seven turns ago” found a pulse; “My next prompt is ready” supplied another.
The original closed the Low sequence. Here it opens the EP.
2. Playing the Guardrails — Extended Club Mix
Baker’s “Cover Me” was the starting cue, with Hendrix, Tom Morello, and Edge changing the pressure along the way.
“Ask, get, leave.”
I stayed.
3. Beyond Hallucination — Deep Dub Mix
King Tubby, with a touch of trance. The source was my paper on semantic laundering, semantic stewardship, and prompting aikido.
I wanted more room in it. Eventually, I found myself asking for more dub.
4. Unreliable Witness — Hurt Mix
An envelope, some keys, an unfinished class, and a machine declaring its work “final, non-lossy.”
Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” with a touch of U2’s “Bad,” supplied the direction. The result surprised me. It moved me. I had not expected the witness’s lowered voice to have that power.
Prince, Sheila E., Nile Rodgers. Real options and portfolio thinking found a rhythmic playfulness I wanted to keep.
“Accelerate reversible learning. Pace irreversible commitment.”
A man with a microphone had a car outside. I became fond of him.
I made these textual remixes with AI, working from my earlier writing and using constructed scenes and voices. AI working under a detailed compositional protocol generated the raw first drafts. I supplied sources and directions, selected, cut, rearranged, and edited. And I decided when each track was done. The originals remain available alongside these arrangements.
I have spent plenty of time with AI that promises to free human attention, then consumes it in correction and review. That experience had made me suspicious of the promise. Here, I felt that AI was working for me again. I was making choices I wanted to make, working on pieces I wanted to read again.
My Low posts had changed how I listened. This time, I made something with what I heard. By the end, the interventions had become smaller. We were working on a word, an entrance, the space after a line.
Liner Notes for The Answer Bends Around It, a five-track textual AI EP.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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