Artist Spotlight: Meet Coffee House Anarchists
What is the inspiration behind it?
The release was influenced by how much AI is becoming present in today's world. Whilst most musicians are fighting against the advance of AI, we decided to do the opposite. That meant embracing the technology that is out there and seeing what could be done with it. The aim was never to press a button and instantly have a finished piece of work, that isn't artistry, it's just the illusion of artistry. Instead we tried to partner with the AI to see what it could actually propose in terms of musical ideas and then, edit, adapt and create with the results to take it to the next level.
Can you share any interesting or unique musical elements or production techniques used in "ART_Official Intelligence?"
As always with Coffee House Anarchists we record and produce everything ourselves. It's something that has really allowed us to shape the sound of our music to become what we can hear in our heads. We've become better at it over the years, and although some of our early albums have a raw edge, it actually adds to the music. On this release, we played with all the available AI options including splitting an old dictaphone demo into stems, vocal generation/manipulation and even AI mastering, although that wasn’t the final version that made the cut.
Is there a particular message or theme you hope listeners take away from "ART_Official Intelligence?"
For this song, we started by adding prompts to ChatGPT and then editing and crafting the response. We tried to stay as neutral as possible with the prompt so the feeling of something actually written by an AI would come through. The result is actually fascinating and slightly scary. In terms of the message, I think when you listen to the track it's pretty clear.
Can you tell us more about you as a band?
Every time we sit down to write a song it needs to be about something, not just generic words that rhyme or fit the melody. Afterwards, it needs to live in a particular place with a specific emotion. We then use our playing and production to enhance and add to this. I think that’s why we’re often told that our music has a cinematic quality to it. We’re constantly looking to push our creative limits and never repeat ourselves. For this release, we wanted to make something that sounded futuristic and hadn’t really been done before.
How do you perceive the current state of the music industry, and what trends do you find most prominent?
How much time do you have? It feels like everything is very fragmented and nobody is getting paid enough to keep the lights on. That said, we have always made music simply because we are passionate about it and absolutely love doing it. When someone actually takes the time to listen to, like, share or even subscribe that is a total victory for us. It’s kind of like our version of winning a Grammy!
