EMPTYSET - Blossoms

We're now not far from the advent of androids as prophesied by Philip K. Dick, and even if it's unlikely they'll gain the ability to dream and feel emotions, their learning skills will certainly be lightning-fast and of unimaginable scope. The electronic scene of the Nineties – though to be precise we'd have to go all the way back to the computerized epic of Kraftwerk – tried to anticipate the pace of technological progress by imagining the music of machines, the creative automation of synthetic sound: today that perspective is turned on its head, and with the latest avant-garde project from the duo Emptyset (James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas) we witness an artificial intelligence creating its own abnormal "natural history".

The result of an eighteen-month study into a system of artificial neural networks, "Blossoms" – again released on Thrill Jockey – packs half an hour of rhythmic and timbral conformations free of any further human intervention. Each track is titled after a minimal element of the flowering plant, from petal to stamen, from bulb to pollen: indeed, one gets the impression of listening not to an entirely alien microcosm, but rather to the reverse side of common organic tissue, plunging into the invisible veins of Creation until its secret logic comes into view.

Heartbeats and involuntary muscle contractions ("Petal", "Pollen"), slow subcutaneous vanishing perspectives ("Blade", "Clone"), noisy cellular reproductive cycles ("Axil", "Filament") and fluid currents of atomic particles ("Bulb"): these are just some of the potential suggestions offered by the fervent apparatus of generative composition, fed with the most sensitive formulas and properties that sonic matter can take on, reaching, over the course of half an hour, a disconcerting degree of malleability.

In my own theoretical framework, "Blossoms" perfectly exemplifies that "aesthetics of collapse" which keeps finding varied expression throughout the ever-growing Subtext catalogue, run by Ginzburg himself. Even setting aside its technical underpinnings, the English duo's latest (non)creation flings open scenarios that are both unsettling and morbidly fascinating - no longer an ominous omen but a living, pulsing testimony to an art that aims to originate in complete autonomy, perhaps allowing us, after so long, to feel an unprecedented sense of wonder, even though the threat is aimed squarely at humanity's precious creativity and free will.

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11/10/2019