cassette – LOM

Robotic Folk is a solo project by the Lithuanian composer Jonas Jurkūnas, who with Volume One, has created a visionary work with many dystopian twists, which – long after the end of our current society – prefigures a synthetic, unconventional man-machine integration. Even the subtitle, Artefacts Of Human Civilization in Robotic Folklore, fully conveys the post-human tension of the release, which, although harsh and convoluted in some parts, also restores a sense of hope with the possibility of survival and redemption for mankind. Robots will use the remains of our musical heritage, reinventing new sequences “in new bottles for new wine” one might say, paraphrasing the text of the same name by Julian Sorell Huxley, biologist, geneticist and writer, brother of Aldous Huxley and a theorist of “the psychosocial evolution of systems”. The new robotic people emerge spontaneously from the ruins and their artificial intelligences evoke the history of our musical ancestors. Automation is already radically changing industries and workplaces and what terrible things were meant to happen, have already occurred. The International Federation of Robotics predicts that in any field within the next decade, more than half of us will work with robots. Today, it is highly unlikely that a musical production is not susceptible to interactions with the latest generation of machines, software and audio technologies. It is therefore a prophecy already fulfilled by Jurkūnas, who from the first song “Sienpjoviai” deploys harmonic hooks, dissonant cuts, glitches and sounds that are part of a past legacy. The same with “Pertrauka” which is simultaneously suave and cybernetic, classical and ultra-futuristic. “Ryga” sounds as if the robots have recovered and remodulated the neurons of Laurie Anderson, while the closing track “Skrydziai”, is almost childish and playful, a revelation as to how context can alter experience and suggest new directions in evolution.

 

Robotic Folk – Volume One