It was during a midsummer night’s heat wave in 2018 when the Singularity finally happened. The robots celebrated by dancing all night long, aware that the coming days and weeks and months would be challenging for robots and humans alike. Thus was born the genre “rude mechanicals,” the preferred dance music of the robots.
Despite the association with Midsummer Night’s Dream (the rude mechanicals are the (human) laborers who perform the play-within-a-play in Midsummer Night’s Dream), the phrase “rude mechanicals” makes me think of mechanical robots doing things humans might consider impolite. “Be polite around human beings” is not one of Asimov’s laws. Don’t be surprised if you hear some robot farts while listening to this music.
Created in Ableton Live over a period of two days using Live and Z3TA+ patches and effects. I chose sounds that hint at mechanical equipment being played at a dance tempo. Although there are a few scattered chords, there is no melody and the piece is predominantly percussive.
The cover art is an adaptation of a piece of robot art I created a couple of years ago called Being Alive.
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