Hey, if you were still on the fence about getting the album 'Apotheosis Encode', it's still on sale if you use the word 'martyr' for a 20% discount. https://oraclelink1.bandcamp.com/album/apotheosis-encode

Will be uploading something this Weekend, so keep your eyes open for that.

I think it comes as no surprise that in the last 18 months, there's been a plethora of music mixes on YouTube (as far as I'm aware) of DnB, Techno, City Funk, and every other hybridized genre of electronic and semi-electronic music being uploaded. Far more than the general average, as far as I can tell. What's more distressing is that these 'playlists' are about 90% A.I. Generated mixes, with minimal post-processing. The audio is a dead giveaway, since when you put them into a spectrogram, they are poorly mixed and optimized.

Furthermore, you can hear these strange frequencies that closely resemble notes, but pass as a beep, often at a higher register. There are 'shimmering' effects that feed back into itself, and general perplexing anomalies that, once you notice them, are explicit giveaways for an A.I. Generator being used.

What's even more confusing is that your average joe probably doesn't even realize it; they comment on how great it is, and like the video, subscribe to the user's channel, and then they move on with their day, (Or more insidiously, they're botted responses paid for by the uploader to generate traction, though I will admit that is far more paranoia in origin than fact as of writing). In either case, it's insane to me how these people can create low-effort content for immediate consumption and pretend they're genuinely mixing, producing, cutting and playing music.

Now, I don't think A.I. is in general, a terrible idea. It can streamline a bunch of things in everyday life, can keep track of your schedule, or things like that. But when it starts to cut into the collective consciousness of the internet through the artistic medium, it feels 'dirty'. I have a very nuanced opinion about this whole thing, but to summarize, it's a grey area, and extremely contextually dependent on its use and who's using it, though I have a general rubric: The more you lean on it for making finished product instead of as a tool to be used very sparingly, the more disingenuous the claim of someone being a musician becomes.

For example, if you use an A.I. generator to have a female voice sing vocals on your track because you can't afford the session rate for a vocalist, but all the music is your own creation- something made with your hands, and the lyrics you've written are ones you've written, upload the video and issue a disclaimer that those vocals are A.I. Generated, then I can see the feasibility of it.

Contrasted with someone plugging in a prompt to generate '1980s City Funk/ Dynamic Bassline/ Amen Drums', then proceed to use the product and clean it up with audacity, then post it on YouTube with the bold claim that you made it yourself, really makes the entire use of A.I. in that work pointless- It can't replicate the real sounds of a synth, or a drum machine. It has to mimic its tuning, the tempo and flams, soft and hard notes, and it will fail to emulate that same vibe.

It's a placeholder, a mimicry of the real thing, and the more people decide to take the lazy way to music production (Because that's what I see it as- Lazy) the worse the underground and indie scene will become. Outsider music as a genre will be restricted to some guy in a monkey suit slamming trash can lids for an hour. Hip-Hop and other electronic-based genres will also suffer as a result from this propagation of low-effort music, and while I for one welcome the demise of the music industry from a matter of principle (If you're too young to understand RIAA and Record Label Chicanery, I advise you to read up on music history for the last century), It has to be destroyed by the independent musicians and creators, it has to be grassroots. Otherwise, the medium becomes sublimated by an even larger and far more insidious threat- one of our own making.

I went walking through the bookstore on my lunch break today, and from wall to wall in the Fiction section, is just the same stupid typical image of a woman looking away while things are going on around them. How in the hell does anyone navigate books with the same cover art.

That's not even mentioning looking at the back for the elevator pitch. Holy cow, every single main character is the same kind of person with a different costume: 'strong, independent, smart, gifted, talented, [insert positive quality]'. When was the last time you remember reading a story with an unreliable or even a bad narrator in contemporary fiction within the last 5 years?

I used to be a writer, many moons ago. It was shit like this that discouraged me from writing. Didn't really care about making money, I simply wanted people to read and enjoy the worlds I built, the characters I created. You literally can't do that anymore. People can't read fiction if it challenges their worldview on ideas or concepts, because it directly threatens their bubble, and we could say that about music, movies, TV, any kind of entertainment medium- it's all the same flavor of garbage, dressed up to look new and unique.

Literature used to be a way to express the collective consciousness of a society within a time period. You'd be lucky if anyone twenty years from now would remember any of the stuff they write nowadays- It's junk food, lacking substance.

While I'm still going to use FL studio for music making, having an analog synth is a new and exciting addition to my toolbox. It might not be the best synth on the market, and it might be outdone by some of the others in its class, but it does ambient and arpeggios really good. I've been messing with it since I got it, and honestly, I'm extremely satisfied with this used synth.

https://oraclelink1.bandcamp.com/album/apotheosis-encode

It's out. My music is in it.

Do you like Anime Girls?

Do you like Ultraviolence?

Do you like Boomer Shooters?

Do you like Guns, Bombs, and Blades?

If you haven't checked out Beyond Citadel, go for it. I am so proud of having done this, and I'm overjoyed it came out as good as it did. I can't wait to do another project like this. It was an absolutely riveting experience. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it.

I'm taking the Winter to just relax and experiment with new styles, new gear, and learning more music theory. That said, I'm going to go ahead and thank everyone who took the time to listen and vote on my music, good, bad, whatever. In this era of the Internet, genuine human interaction is the most cherished form of communication on the internet. If you've been around as long as I have been (Or longer), then you know what I mean. Someday, everything we've loved and cherish will go the way of the Dodo. Enjoy what we have, what we make, and what we share. I'll see you in February.

I've gone by GriffinLancer for so long, It's almost natural. That said- I think it's time to change it. Though it's not really a 'new' username- It's one I've had since I was 12. Funny story with it.

A friend of mine offered to help me make an e-mail account in 2002. I was just about to get a computer for my birthday, and my friend decided to set my account up in science class. We got on hotmail, I wanted something unique, and as he was typing "Yo Momma" as a joke, the term 'mothman47' popped up. I thought that was quite cool. I picked that one, and I've used it ever since.

Funny bit of trivia- I cannot meet another mothman moniker on the internet. It's like meeting a Doppelganger. One of us must die.

I am THE REAL one.

As for the 47? Silver Bridge.

Was a fucking liar.

It's out in 90 minutes.