#460
Ghost Signs - Blues For Mechanical Turks
Friday 14th April, 2017
They say: “The story behind the track, and of the Ghost Signs project I guess, is a sort of apprehension of technology and its increasing role in our lives (the irony and vague hypocrisy of all the technology that has gone into getting this dialogue between us is fairly apparent).
A Mechanical Turk is a machine that seems to be completely automated, but actually is mostly done by a hidden human. But more and more things that did need to be done by a human are being made fully automated and with the increase of computer power, AI, robots etc, it doesn't seem like it'll be too long before we'll all be redundant. We're all the mechanical Turks of society, in a way.
Whether or not you think this will be a good or bad thing, I don't know, but it feels sad to me, a slow loss of our humanity to a stubborn machine with no feelings, so Blues for Mechanical Turks. The music is created mostly live with two four-track tapes, a guitar and a lot of effects, recorded in one take and minimal post-production. Going back to the lo-fi aesthetic I guess, to make the music more tangible than just being some boxes on a computer screen that you drag out to make a piece longer, endless overdubs and retakes... all that made the process of creating music boring for me. The technology gets in the way of the joy of music.
So one day I made some tape loops out of old cassettes I had lying round the house and I found that the physical manipulation of sliders on the 4 tracks and the act of inserting a new cassette or tweaking a pedal was fun again. Maybe I'm trying to put back some humanity into the music I made by not letting a computer get too near to it.
The music on Blues for Mechanical Turks and on the previous release These Small Things Rebuild is melancholic, some might say dystopian, but I like to think that there's little moments of hope hidden throughout it.
I should probably clarify that I certainly don't think all music created on a computer is soulless or lacking humanity, just that when I created music that way, it was lacking something.”
We say: “Old cassette tape and vintage technology are involved in this rich evocation. Hints of the pioneering ambient experiments with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, particularly Atmospheres And Soundtracks from 1983.”
Ghost Signs is the latest tape-loop laden project from Iain Holmes, and Blues For Mechanical Turks is taken from the album of the same name, available to buy now.
As often as possible Across the Line aims to bring you a great new, recent or interesting track each day, Monday to Friday. To get your new music to Across the Line send it via theBBC Introducing Uploader
