Put Emojis On My Grave

Put Emojis On My Grave (CD /DL) is a debut album of a group of musicians that call their lineup Ancient Psychic Triple Hyper Octopus. The album is available via the experimental music label Not Applicable. Freely improvising and seriously experimenting with electroacoustic means, the album boldly explores the relationship between AI and improvisation. The album is strong both in the way it utilizes AI and improvising in a more mundane manner. The result is absolutely something worth hearing, particularly the first half of the album that is more experimental in nature, with a prominent sound art flavour in it (use best loudspeakers you can get hold of), but also the rest that I find representing more conventional improvised jazz deserves attention. This is material as alive and energetic as it can be, positively surprising.

Ancient Psychic Triple Hyper Octopus features a new lineup of celebrated musicians: Alex Bonney (trumpet, bass recorder, Strohviol), Will Glaser (drums and percussion) and Isambard Khroustaliov, aka Sam Britton (electronics). According to the publisher: “Ancient Psychic Triple Hyper Octopus are infused with a sense of humour. This is a music which eschews traditional musical composition, and attempts to imagine how AI could make a positive contribution to the creative process. Across the album’s six tracks, there’s a feeling of a dawning, something new, artificial and organic, coming alive – with reminders of Art Ensemble Of Chicago’s futurism, the melodicism of Don Cherry, the adventurous lyricism of Ornette Coleman – there are quick-witted exchanges, the joy of play, the electronic wheezing and frantic pots and pans-like percussion, all of which, as if to the surprise of its creators, amounts finally to a musique concrète achieved both acoustically as well as electronically.”

Put Emojis On My Grave is full of human creativity trying to cope with the machinery humans have created not exactly knowing where it leads to and hoping for the best.