The Fatal Kiss

I’ve been working a bit on the next Soulsigma album, which is going to be entitled BYRONICS and will consist entirely of songs based on the poetry of George Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron. And while I’m not playing any of the album songs publicly or putting them up on UATV now, I have been playing a few of the experiments that didn’t make the cut on the Darkstream.

THE FATAL KISS is a song based on EUTHANASIA, which is one of Byron’s less-known, but more intense poems. It is mordant, obviously, but for some reason, it reminds me of Plato and The Death of Socrates, in which the philosopher wonders why anyone should fear something akin to the best night of sleep one has ever known.

Then lonely be my latest hour,
Without regret, without a groan;
For thousands Death hath ceased to lower,
And pain been transient or unknown.
“Aye but to die, and go,” alas!
Where all have gone, and all must go!
To be the nothing that I was
Ere born to life and living woe!
Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
‘Tis something better not to be.

Now that is a wordsmith! In any event, a UATV subscriber requested this one be added to what is now a 46-song music library available for listening and downloading to subscribers.

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Why Were They Even There?

I don’t care in the slightest about Eurovision, but in light of the “controversy” I’m astonished that the Eurovision people permitted Israel to compete at all.

Around 4,000 musicians, artist and music industry pros from five Nordic countries signed an open letter denouncing the Middle Eastern country’s entry in the 69th Eurovision song contest in Basel.

Those who signed the statement, including some previous Eurovision winners, dubbed Israel’s involvement in the competition as a bid to ‘whitewash and divert attention’ from the Israel’s bombardment on Gaza.

It argued that Israel ‘should not have the opportunity to polish its public image on the Eurovision stage and thus use this to cover up and continue its human rights violations.’

Elsewhere broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have called for a debate on Israel’s involvement. Last week, 70 former Eurovision contestants signed a letter calling on the organisers to ban Israel from the competition.

More than 53,000 people have been killed by Israel’s bombardment of the besieged territory, with all aid blocked from entering Gaza since March.

Israel should never have been permitted to compete in Eurovision in the first place. First and foremost, it’s not in Europe. Second, it makes zero sense for Israel to be permitted to participate when Russia is banned from participating. And third, there was zero chance that the Israeli competitor was going to be received well by the Eurovision audience.

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Go With the Flow

On last night’s Darkstream I provided some examples of what is possible with the new Suno 4.5 system. It’s definitely an improvement, especially in terms of vocal quality and overall audio quality, and it does a much better job of sticking to the lyrics. Probably the most useful change is that the initial song limit is now 8 minutes, which means that it won’t keep cropping fully-outlined songs short and requiring an extension, although it still can’t do short extensions to simply end a song very well and the Replace Section editor appears to have its selection timing off by a few microseconds.

What impressed me most was the way it finally let me finish SIDDHARTHA in the way I wanted, as no amount of previous extensions and remasterings using 3.0, 3.5, or 4.0 succeeded in producing what I was looking to do. However, 4.5 allowed me to turn out a beautiful five-minute song that combines David Sylvian and Enigma with Herman Hesse, and it turned out so well that I intend to construct a full album around it once I finish the Byronics project this summer. But in the meantime, UATV subscribers can listen to it in higher-quality than any of the audio streaming services provide.

Speaking of UATV subscriptions, this is the right time to get on board with the new subscription-and-payment system if you haven’t started the process yet. I’ve also got the Darkstream up-to-date, and we’ll get Arkhaven Nights caught up sometime next week.

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We Thought Wikipedia was Bad

Someone asked Deepseek about the founders of Psykosonik.

It’s almost impressive how it is completely incorrect in every way, except for the bit about Minneapolis.

  • Formed in: 1991 (Minneapolis, MN, USA)
  • Members:
    • Paul Sebastien
    • Theodore Beale
    • Daniel Lensmeier
    • Michael Larson
  • Label: Wax Trax!

We were on TVT, but they were our publisher, not our record label. Paul and I were the two founders of the band; we wrote three songs together, after which Dan, who was a DJ at our favorite club, The Perimeter, and Mike, the best friend of Paul’s younger brother, were asked to join the band so that we could play live shows. Paul and Dan were the main composers, I wrote most of the lyrics, and Mike contributed a lot of the sounds that Paul and Dan built the songs around, such as that rich wuah-wuah that begins Silicon Jesus.

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IF YOU HAD A TIME MACHINE

The first bonus track from THE ONLY SKULL campaign has been released as a single. You can hear it on Unauthorized, on the various mainstream music platforms, and on YouTube. The second bonus track will be released as a single next Monday, and I have no idea when the third bonus track, being the organic one, will even be recorded, so that one will be a while.

In other news on the creative front, a new chapter has begun in the serialization of TEMPUS OCCULTUM on Arktoons, chapter four, entitled Deceptus Eclipsus.

The abbot’s study was illuminated by tall windows that admitted thin blades of afternoon light, slicing through dust motes that danced in their path. As I entered, I sensed the weight of authority in the room—not just ecclesiastical, but something older, more primal. Father Umbertus stood by the abbot’s desk, his expression tense. Abbot Gerhardt sat behind it, fingers steepled, his face an impenetrable mask. And there, by the window, stood the stranger I had observed in the courtyard, now examining a celestial globe with affected interest.

“Brother Lukas,” the abbot intoned, “may I present Doctor Alessandro Visconti, Chief Archivist of the Vatican Apostolic Library.”

Visconti turned at the mention of his name, fixing me with eyes so dark they appeared almost black in the shadowed room. The ring with the quartered circle gleamed on his right hand as he offered a slight bow.

“Brother Lukas,” he said, his Italian accent precise yet subtle. “I have heard much about your… scholarly endeavors.”

“You honor our humble abbey with your presence, Doctor Visconti,” I replied, bowing in return. “Though I confess I am surprised that my humble work cataloging manuscripts would attract the attention of the Vatican’s Chief Archivist.”

A smile flickered across his face, cold as winter sunlight. “The Church takes a keen interest in all scholarly pursuits, particularly those concerning the correct interpretation of historical documents.”

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The Unreliability of the Corpocracy

It’s not just a problem for the outcasts and the unauthorized anymore. The ease and speed of AI production are removing any need for low-level artists producing buffet-style art for mass consumption. This article refers to how Spotify is now directing listeners toward its own fake artists, but Amazon is doing exactly the same thing with ebooks and audiobooks.

In early 2022, I started noticing something strange in Spotify’s jazz playlists. I listen to jazz every day, and pay close attention to new releases. But these Spotify playlists were filled with artists I’d never heard of before.

Who were they? Where did they come from? Did they even exist?

In April 2022, I finally felt justified in sharing my concerns with readers. So I published an article here called “The Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize.” I was careful not to make accusations I couldn’t prove. But I pointed out some puzzling facts.

Many of these artists live in Sweden—where Spotify has its headquarters. According to one source, a huge amount of streaming music originates from just 20 people, who operate under 500 different names. Some of them were generating supersized numbers. An obscure Swedish jazz musician got more plays than most of the tracks on Jon Batiste’s We Are—which had just won the Grammy for Album of the Year (not just the best jazz album, but the best album in any genre).

How was that even possible?

I continued to make inquiries, and brooded over this strange situation. But something even stranger happened a few months later.

A listener noticed that he kept hearing the same track over and over on Spotify. But when he checked the name of the song, it was always different. Even worse, these almost identical tracks were attributed to different artists and composers. He created a playlist, and soon had 49 different versions of this song under various names. The titles sounded as if they had come out of a random text generator—almost as if the goal was to make them hard to remember.

  • Trumpet Bumblefig
  • Bumble Mistywill
  • Whomping Clover
  • Qeazpoor
  • Swiftspark
  • Vattio Bud

I reported on this odd situation. Others joined in the hunt, and found more versions of the track under still different names. The track itself was boring and non-descript, but it was showing up everywhere on the platform.

Around this same time, I started hearing jazz piano playlists on Spotify that disturbed me. Every track sounded like it was played on the same instrument with the exact same touch and tone. Yet the names of the artists were all different.

Were these AI generated? Was Spotify doing this to avoid paying royalties to human musicians? Spotify issued a statement in the face of these controversies. But I couldn’t find any denial that they were playing games with playlists in order to boost profits.

By total coincidence, Spotify’s profitability started to improve markedly around this time.

If your brand and your sales are dependent upon a major platform, you need to be prepared for the fact that you are going to lose it sooner or later, because once established, it is always much more profitable for a platform to generate its own content than serve as a middleman paying out the majority of its own revenue to external content creators. And the combination of algorithmic influence with the total indifference of the modern mass consumer means that there is no brand loyalty on a major platform.

As the analyst observed: “This is what happens when distributors take control of a creative industry, and outsource content.

And it is why it is absolutely vital for a creator-centric community to stick together and relentlessly find ways to work together, because the larger economic forces are now operating in a way to eliminate independent creators. Fortunately, we have a small, but strong and battle-tested community, as well as several loyal creators who understand the importance and the necessity of standing together.

We have a lot of talent in the community. This is why I’m always encouraging people to take on new projects of which they conceive, like Vox DAI, just to give one example, and to support external creator projects like A WORKING MAN – which launches today, by the way – because it gives us all a much better chance than those poor bastards who still think they can rely upon YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon going forward.

And that’s why, although some of my music can be found on Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes, all of it is available in the very highest quality on UATV, including the 8th track on the Soulsigma album, THE WORD DESCENDED.

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Spring Break Extended

  • The two bonus tracks promised to Gold Skull and White Leather Skull backers have been sent out. Both A MERCILESS NIGHT and IF YOU HAD A TIME MACHINE were professionally mastered by the same professional engineer who mastered the 10 album tracks. They’ll go up on UATV after the rest of the album is uploaded there. They may be released as singles or b-sides later. We’re now working on the organic bonus track, which is an entirely new song that is arguably the best yet.
  • Vibe Patrol released the Spring Break Extended mix of A DRINK WITH A COCONUT today. It’s on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube. You can always keep up with new releases by using the links on the left sidebar.

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The Only Darkstream

Nothing dramatic, actually. But tonight’s Darkstream will be a listening party for the new SOULSIGMA album release, so if you are interested, please stop by. And if you’re not interested, then please don’t because we will not be discussing JD Vance, Russia, the release of the Epstein Files, or anything even remotely related to current events.

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THE ONLY SKULL is out

My first complete solo music project, The Only Skull, was released this morning on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify, as well as a number of other music platforms of varying degrees of obscurity. It’s not entirely solo, as I collaborated with one celebrity corpse and an AI system in composing and recording everything, and all ten songs were mastered by an excellent audio engineer whose primary clients are heading one of the world’s most iconic music festivals this summer.

A link containing the appropriate download will be sent out to the backers later today, and for those who are interested, we’ll hold a listening party on the Friday Darkstream. I have not selected the two bonus tracks yet from the five that have been recorded, and the engineer and I are still working out how we want to approach the promised organic track, which is likely to be a really good new song that does not appear on the album but will be provided later to the relevant backers. It may be that this song will be provided only to the backers, because there is a reasonable chance that it will be released by another artist who is interested in recording and releasing it himself.

    1. Ride and Die
    2. The Only Skull
    3. Angel in Flight
    4. Seasons
    5. Neptune Grieves
    6. My Secret Sin
    7. The Shining Wire
    8. The Word Descended
    9. Once There Was Sorrow
    10. The Ride Never Ends

    Anyhow, I am well aware that this is not an area that most of the readers here are much interested in, but I would encourage you to check it out if you are curious about the current state of the art of music technology at the moment.

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