- Hybrid, outsider dance music that uses AI to imitate figures like The Weeknd and Oprah.
- Jaymie Silk has always been aware of his outsider status. He grew up in France, where he produced rap as a teen, before falling into electronic music after a move to Montreal led him to the city's ballroom scene. Silk is both a sponge and a chameleon, able to quickly absorb and turn his hand to different styles and genres while nodding to his Afro-European roots. "Rub Music" is a style he coined that conflates rave and club music—("This is not Rave music, this is not Club Music, this is Rub Music")—both terms he doesn't completely identify with. The tracks on his first explorations into the style, Artificial Realness, are highly danceable experiments in sound. And the EP draws from a range of influences with one common, and unique, thread: the use of AI-generated vocals.
"Illusions" is techno with breakbeat bridges and broad appeal. Here, a digital Tupac impostor implores you to "forget what you know about this world, everything is not real," over icy pads, bleating synths and pounding drums. A computerised Kendrick Lamar pops up on the similarly insistent "Temptation," while the vocals on "Mechanical Birds" belong to an anonymous "little boy" delivering bleak messages about the future, interspersed with fractious beats and polyrhthyms. Stripped of melody, the track's first half could be described as IDM before the track reboots in the form of disjointed PC music, as though made with a glitchy computer.
The record's title track suggests what The Weeknd might sound like if he traded Swedish House Mafia's radio-ready polish with Silk's dark, hook-free shape-shifting. It's the rare kind of song that could be played in an EDM festival set or a dingy warehouse and work equally well in both. The Oprah impersonator on "Break Free," on the other hand, doesn't pass muster. Its background patchwork of ambient beats is the least urgent on the EP, more suited to the chill-out room than the dance floor.
Overall, Artificial Realness is a fascinating insight into the potential of AI-powered vocals (thrilling or terrifying, depending on your outlook). Bar AI Oprah, the voices used here are utterly convincing—disconcertingly so—and it's easy to imagine other computer-generated voices being used to brilliant and awful effect. Silk's tracks fall into the former category, and will tear at both raves and clubs, perhaps aided by the familiarity of the voices heard. One of his most unusual experiments yet might just prove one of his most successful.