Lee Barry Composition Diary

Ancient AI by Lee Barry Alux (Duende) with some "place" added around it. Towards the end, an EDM groove is added with a short bass interlude based on the main tetrachord (G-Ab-B-C), then fades.

Side A A1: Mxines The sound of trains has always inspired pop music. But now machines are silent algorithms. The closest corollary to machines inspiring music is the random buzzes and clicks from electronics and things like the read/write head on a disk drive. That's what inspired the static-y rhythms on this track. The glitched sound is from the random "scrubbing" of the timeline. A2: Ancient AI  A generative work based on one small looped MIDI file playing various synth patches and samples, and three gapped scales to be used for improvisation (its "DNA"). The tempo can be set at multiples of itself (e.g. 46/92/184) and played as layered polyrhythms. (For example, the MIDI file can loop at 92 on another sample running at 184, against another one running at 46.) Chord Changes: G# min / A / G#min / F#min / E / C#min The melodic layer uses four scales simultaneously, an E minor pentatonic against a C#minor, F#minor or G#minor, whic...

I like to refer to these as a "cluster changes" rather than chord changes. Sometimes you want to construct chords simply by stacking notes without consideration of what the chord symbols are. Chord "symbolization" can corrupt the thinking about harmony. These clusters are essentially a ii-V in C minor, but have nothing to do with C minor as a tonality. Ancient AI by Lee Barry