The Aural Premonition

your medium for new music

[visual-poetry]

by leigh de vries

from the leighisms project

[robertmitchum]

BILL NYE can’t stress the importance of Climate Change enough

[jackvanzet]

Hey friends - Piano Works is out now. Catch it in full on all good listening platforms. Hoping you enjoy 🎹🖤http://smarturl.it/pianoworks

Follow along on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thrupencemusic/

[badbadhats]

We back! For now. Photo by Zoe Prinds-Flash.

[aiweirdness]

How to begin a song

So a while ago I made my first Twitter/Mastodon bot, a very simple little bot called TheSingalongBot. It came out of a chance conversation at the XOXO conference with Kate Compton and Gretchen McCulloch, and all it does is toot/tweet/twoot the first line of a song. Humans can sing along if they want. (To date, SingalongBot followers have finished the ABC song, A British Tar is a Soaring Soul, When Will My Life Begin, and, heroically, The Saga Begins. They are also about 80% through 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall).

To build up a suitable list of first lines for the bot, I started with a list of billboard top hits from the last 50 years. And then, because I was worried that the top hits might exclude some of the best songs, I asked people to submit the catchiest songs they knew. I got over 1,500 suggestions. Once I removed duplicates (”I threw a wish in the well” was submitted 14 times, followed closely by “Is this the real life?”) and combined with the billboard hits, I had 3,847 songs. The bot is going strong, and meanwhile I have this dataset.

Yes, of course I trained a neural net on it.

[Image from somewhere in BigGAN latent space, using ganbreeder.app]

Here’s how well it did at imitating the song lines after it had seen all 3,847 lines just once in training (that is, at the end of Epoch 1).

All I was a light the goont dood and och go dread I want the stars a gind was the stord I can’t a live the sake you hee I want you ging you sand the rook on the shook The sharly goold the bodey

By the end of Epoch 2 it could at least spell a bit better, though it made no actual sense.

I can a got a baby I can day more to make you make you a pan I was a little time it make a love a friend When I don’t got a love I see up a bearsting Well I was a pan and I ever mise You can a baby, down Here you one and you are now

By Epoch 3 it has settled on the strategy of using “baby” in pretty much every song.

I don’t know the baby We’re the baby baby I’m gonna get up and love is to the sea The baby all the trains You see you wanna take the something We’re not on your road I don’t know when I’m gone and thing My baby but this baby love your eyes Looking down the baby for you

Epoch 4: experimenting a bit more with new words, including some that don’t actually exist. Grammar: questionable.

You can see your face I don’t want to be a room You think a beautiful saids There all the true of the horse You don’t never think the street You can dang the be sunshine You love me funny things I don’t never love you You never good the darn tonight You know you want you I was air, the end is the light The time, I was a train There’s a tring at the boom I’m not my bright on the brains the feeling on my heart

Fast-forwarding a bit to Epoch 7, the neural net’s progress is a bit less obvious. At least we can mostly figure out what it is trying to say. Mostly.

I was a little beautiful star I was a funny life with a little sing Hearing about a brain I was so long to be a little baby I got my love, I got a put you in my heart I want you to the thing I got a single and the world so lonely You took my heart and shipportow I can’t get up in love When I was a strangle, day Spinnarduachy nobody man whiskey, die where it come Staps the phone Yo babe, very where you are frow You shazry waiting and I’m girlin’

We arrive now at the end of the training, in Epoch 15 (so chosen because progress had pretty much stopped). The neural net has learned quite a bit, really.

It has learned to do love songs.

I see you standing in the hair I can dance if you want my life Oh no, my name is in the sky Oh, I’m in love with your head in my eyes You look at me like there’s a strungle I see you and I’m home, and I see your face for me I’m so tired of being so hearts Yeah I’m always love you

And dance tunes.

Love, love my eyes rollin’ Ive got to Seem sexy Hello when I came home from ass Oh, baby, do you make her bass? Welp, a-sunshane’ said, doot doot doot dam i gim

And folk songs.

When i get up in the mirror This is the world that you’re a burning here I can’t explain my window Welp, the lack of the sunshine You are my eyes are the boot I see you standin’ on the mind I said it up, the year was 1778

And whatever the heck these are.

The lights in the eventoot, heaven me I had a peanut, ooooonce colod me back at the sing Look down! Couse Rider schoode After all waits that you’re feelinged Fingertippolming Muskrat, pen up forever for me Hush, you’re funny time I was childrentin' 

Look out, songwriters! AI is coming for your jobs!

I also collected some songs generated by the most highly-trained algorithm, but at a higher creativity level so they’re really really weird. To get the list (and optionally bonus material every time I post), sign up here.

[bearhandsband]

We wrote this on the ceiling of Rough Trade East in London 10 years ago and it’s still there today 🙏 https://ift.tt/2Aeg62k

[killthespareno]

when that beat drops in nobody 

[champagnemanagement]

hit that triple, bitch!!!!

[itscolossal]

Watch a Vinyl Record Spin so Quickly That it Shatters

[jackvanzet]

The first Thrupence release ‘Voyages’ turned 6 recently. What a ride since then. Ups, downs and many changes. Revisit it - for old times sake. New music soon. Lots of love. https://thrupence.bandcamp.com/album/voyages-ep

[mariadanielaquiros]

[masonyin]

The instrments on the summer beach.

[jackvanzet]

[jackvanzet]

[theauralpremonition]

Minneapolis Venues in Review

The Aural's Top Minneapolis Music Venues words by Kelsey Simpkins photos by Lora Hlavsa and Kelsey Simpkins

1. Icehouse 2. First Avenue and 7th Street Entry 3. Turf Club

[subpop]

Happy Release Day @marikahackman​! 🍳🥒 Your absolutely fabulous Sub Pop Debut, ‘I’m Not Your Man’ is out and available in the record stores of North America (and also streaming in all of the day’s most popular digital formats). . . #marikahackman #imnotyourman #subpop

[beardedgentlemenmusic]

Said The Whale helps us connect with them and each other on a much deeper level than most pop music would even think of attempting. 

@theauralpremonition

http://beardedgentlemenmusic.com/2017/04/25/said-the-whale-miscarriage-review/

[jackvanzet]

My new record ‘Ideas of Aesthetics’ is out today. It’s been a long time coming but it feels great to finally be able to share it.

Special thank you to Edward, Wafia and Andrei Eremin for making the record sound the way it does. Couldn’t have finished it without these guys. They helped shape the record into what it is today.

A huge thanks for all your support - from the first mixtapes in 2011 to a record in 2017.  It means a great deal to know there’s people out there enjoying the music! 

http://futr.cl/IdeasOfAesthetics Happy listening, Thruppy