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Squarepusher Reveals Details Of New EP Collaboration With Robots (Yes, Actual Robots)

• 13th Feb 2014

Never one to miss out on a bizarre collaboration, EDM maestro Squarepusher has revealed news of a project with a team of young Japanese roboticists who have created a music-performing system that is beyond the capablities of even the most advanced musicians.

The three robots that comprise Z-Machines were the result. The roboticist’s musical producer, Kenjiro Matsuo, and his team, invited a number of Japanese composers to develop music specifically for the project. An invitation was also extended to Squarepusher – you can see the results on the resulting “Sad Robots Go Funny” video, produced by award winning director, Daito Manabe, can be seen here:

The ‘Music For Robots’ EP will be released 7th April 2014, and here’s what the man himself had to say about his latest madcap venture:

“In this project the main question I’ve tried to answer is ‘can these robots play music that is emotionally engaging?’

I have long admired the player piano works of Conlon Nancarrow and Gyorgy Ligeti. Part of the appeal of that music has to do with hearing a familiar instrument being ‘played’ in an unfamiliar fashion. For me there has always been something fascinating about the encounter of the unfamiliar with the familiar. I have long been an advocate of taking fresh approaches to existing instrumentation as much as I am an advocate of trying to develop new instruments, and being able to rethink the way in which, for example, an electric guitar can be used is very exciting.

“Each of the robotic devices involved in the performance of this music has its own specification which permits certain possibilities and excludes others – the robot guitar player for example can play much faster than a human ever could, but there is no amplitude control. In the same way that you do when you write music for a human performer, these attributes have to be borne in mind – and a particular range of musical possibilities corresponds to those attributes. Consequently, in this project familiar instruments are used in ways which till now have been impossible.”

The new EP can be pre-ordered here.

Tracklisting:

01. Remote Amber
02. Sad Robot Goes Funny
03. World Three
04. Dissolver
05. You Endless