The logic of automation has long been part of modern music production. But what happens when it no longer merely assists, but takes over the creative process and artistic execution itself? Simon Littauer’s Slopcore is one of the latest attempts to answer that question. The sound of the AI-driven project is not radical as such, but it is interesting because Slopcore is several things at once: both a concrete take on an artistic practice shaped by recent developments in AI, and a symptom of the all-encompassing data models currently being debated so intensely.
Slopcore mimics the logic of a familiar streaming platform, except that the music here is generated in real time, with the audio stream continuously adapting to the listener’s behaviour, allowing users to proactively like the output or skip ahead whenever they want. The simple interface – featuring play, pause, and a heart icon – is accompanied by a pointillistic waveform that visually emphasises how Slopcore’s aesthetic winds its way through recognisable electronic terrains of house, 2000s electronica, IDM, techno, drum’n’bass, ambient synth textures, etc. etc. Most of it is rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically coherent, without being overly experimental.
As an AI-boosted extension of Littauer’s broader musical practice – which already contains strong aleatoric and algorithmic elements – the whole thing makes perfect sense. AI is not disappearing as a technology, and the parallels to Spotify’s growing AI ambitions or platforms like Suno are obvious enough. Littauer’s position as an established electronic musician becomes entangled in a deeply commercial and opaque data architecture (read: Google’s). And the title clearly references – perhaps ironically – the concept of »AI slop«, the term used to describe the generic, soulless overproduction of images and sound flooding digital platforms. Beyond being an entertaining listening experience, Slopcore can also be seen as a relevant – perhaps, in the current climate, even courageous – contribution to an ongoing and confusing debate about artistic integrity and authenticity in a cultural world that cannot decide whether it wants to resist or simply log in.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
»For me, music is a particular engine for diversity, identity, individuality, and community. Music has an immediate ability both to create and strengthen safe spaces and to expand and tear apart the boundaries of existence.«
Artist, curator, and educator Jacob Eriksen works between Struer and Berlin. He is head of Sound Art Lab, festival director of Struer Tracks, director of studies at 89 Sound Art School, and teaches Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at UdK Berlin.
Back in the day, people watched Beverly Hills 90210 simply because it filled the flow-TV schedule. Artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, too, spent his youth wandering through those virtual Californian landscapes. In the project Fata Morgana, Løkkegaard and American composer Michael Pisaro-Liu explore this strange experience between place and fiction. With the alto recorder as their weapon, they invite us both home and away. And, as a nostalgic homage to bygone media realities, the project comes with an A-side and a B-side. It begins with »Visit«: the crackle of forest floor near Løkkegaard’s childhood home in western Jutland, recorded in 2021. The microphone is placed somewhere, a few steps are taken – and then silence... Far away, the alto recorder begins a melody surrounded by birdsong. This homely soundscape is woven into the listener’s own sense of place. Was that a car driving by – here? Or there?
On the B-side, »Visitation«, Pisaro-Liu repositions the flute piece in California in 2024. The tension rises; the melody is visited and haunted from the other side of the globe. It is disturbed and distorted by electric signals, siren tones, interfering noise, and fragments of American voices murmuring things about »fever dream« and »not anything in particular.«
For indeed, there isn’t really anything. It’s classic Løkkegaard: an imagined world unfolding in the listener’s mind. It could have been done in less than 2x22 minutes, but the idea is strong, simple, and well executed. Like the sonic version of a cartoon mirage shimmering falsely in the sharp Californian sunlight.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
»For me, music is the light that streams in through our windows and touches the human mind. Music is community – something we create together. Music is the other language – the one that can be spoken when all words and conversations have been worn to pieces.«
Mark Solborg is a Danish-Argentinian guitarist, composer, and improviser, educated at institutions including the Rhythmic Music Conservatory and New School University in New York. He has released 28 albums of his own works and collaborated with figures such as Evan Parker, Susana Santos Silva, and Herb Robertson – often on the artist-run label ILK, which he co-founded. His music has been performed in 23 countries and involves musicians from 15 nations. Projects such as TUNGEMÅL and BABEL explore the role of the electric guitar in acoustic spaces, and his practice also includes collaborations with theatre, film, and visual art. Solborg is a recipient of a Reumert Award, has been honored by the Danish Arts Foundation, and in 2024 was nominated for a Danish Music Award as Composer of the Year. He is currently releasing the album Confluencia.
There’s something distinctly mechanical about Oh No Noh’s album As Late As Possible. Like a warped, crumpled tape, melodies bubble to the surface, and the offbeat rhythms repeat with the halting tempo of a scratched LP. It’s easy to place Oh No Noh within the esteemed German tradition of blurring the lines between human and machine, but on As Late As Possible, the machine sounds more like a distant relative than a deliberate artistic objective.
Behind Oh No Noh is Leipzig-based guitarist Markus Rom. In addition to a wealth of synthesizers and tape loops, the album’s 11 tracks are performed using guitar, drums, banjo, clarinet, and organ. The absence of vocals sets the album in a subdued, cinematic mood, and the music feels like a nostalgic inner monologue, told with a warm affection for the melancholy of outdated technologies.
Although mechanical sensibilities are prominent throughout the album, several tracks are driven by more melodic band arrangements. But to me, As Late As Possible is clearly most compelling on the less melodic pieces. The crooked and noisy »Fawn« or the hesitant closing track »Ore« are moments where the dialogue with the machine elevates the music in ways that the more melodic, band-oriented pieces don’t quite reach. These are places where the machines sigh nostalgically and form small, imperfect thought bubbles that cut off and restart again.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
»Music for me is like a sourdough. If you don't feed it right it is going to die. If you feed it correctly a lot of people can benefit from it.«
Halym Kim is a drummer, composer and project coordinator based in Copenhagen. His music is mainly based in free improvisation and experimental music but performs also as a traditional Korean percussionist. He has a Master and an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Music Performance from RMC in Copenhagen. Together with Nana Pi he organizes Impro Camp which is a music camp for free and structured improvised music that is happening every year in Fredericia, Denmark.
