17. 1,000 Lights (Or, An album of new material that came together seemingly out of thin air)

Let me just say a few words here about "1000 Lights," which was released on March 11 of this year (2023). It is, to my mind, a "minor" release, but still a part of my ever-evolving catalogue of new music (i.e. as opposed to being a compilation).

"1000 Lights" eventually came to include, in addition to the three tracks left over from the recently-recorded "In-yo" (Yin-Yang: Light/Dark) EP, which I mentioned above, some of the other, even newer material I had recorded late last year that hadn't yet found a proper home, specifically two medium-length (well, by my standards, anyway; that is, as compared to longer tracks that can run for 30 or more minutes) ambient pieces. 

The first, entitled "Runanubandha," is a dark ambient instrumental which includes a sample I'd taken riding the train that I had originally planned to use for my recording of "Kether to Malkuth" (a reinterpretation of Bowie's "Station to Station," as I shall discuss in more detail below); the second a track I entitled "The Silent Ones." 

The latter track started out, interestingly, as a backing track I had created to use for two Bowie vocal samples that were essentially "lifted" from someone's YouTube page, the vocals isolated/extracted (by someone, not me...) from two songs written by Bowie and his then-guitarist Reeves Gabrels as part of their soundtrack for the "Omikron: The Nomad Soul"* (sic) video game (these tracks ultimately ended up, in slightly different versions, on the album's b-side -- that is, the b-SIDE of the vinyl or cassette tape versions, not the CD, obviously -- of Bowie's '99 LP "hours..."). As I couldn't release it as an official remix/reconstruction, however different my version was from the original, since I didn't and still don't own the rights to the Bowie vocal samples themselves, I decided, instead, to take the vocals out (including my backing vocals, which I'd added to the remix, save for the final, whispered phrase "the silent ones," from which I derived the title of my original track for "1,000 Lights") and found that it also worked nicely as an instrumental; it was a rather atmospheric ambient track in and of itself, and I liked it in its bare-bones version as well. The track includes some improvised piano tinkles, various samples I had recorded on a walk through the town/city where I work (at one of several teaching gigs), as well as at the train station, and it also had some loops/samples of strings and other things, duly manipulated.

"Haunted Child" music video, with footage from Takuya Mizukami. Included on the "1000 Lights" LP.

Having also recently, at the time, rediscovered some previously unreleased "vaults" tracks, I then decided to work on remixing them, giving them a new, updated sound and, in some cases, even, brand new titles to better fit their radically-altered forms. Tagging the three tracks from what had been the "In-Yo" EP -- along with the recently-recorded track "Inner Peace" from late last year, which includes the voice of the Dalai Lama -- onto the track list, I soon realized that I now had another essentially brand new LP which, somehow, was no longer "1123," but something else, something entirely different. The cover art I finally decided to use, a photo I'd taken that was, essentially, a blur of light, which I further effectorized before adding the title, and a track I had recently rather drastically rearranged** from an older instrumental, retitled as "1000 Lights," rounded out the collection.

"Inner Peace" music video, feat. spoken word from His Holiness the 14th The Dalai Lama.

* Regarding the "Omikron/Omicron" reference: I have been teaching a self-designed course on David Bowie at university every fall for two years running now, and seeing the title "Omikron" from 1999 -- despite the slight difference in spelling, with "k" replacing the "c" -- never fails to make my students giggle, especially after I crack a joke about how DB was, after all, incredibly ahead of his time, predicting the pandemic all the way back in the late '90s. (Omicron actually came in the latter phases of the pandemic, which didn't hit until early '22, so that is perhaps even more incredible to contemplate, no? So, so ahead of his time!!) Of course the term "Omicron" itself comes from the Greek alphabet, and wasn't suddenly created for Covid, either, and of course the video game had nothing at all to do with viral mutations or any such, though perhaps the game had predicted, in some sense, the coming AI revolution? I mean...um, well. Bad joke. Never mind.

** The sound of the rearranged instrumental I've just mentioned, after it was finished, somehow recalled to my mind Coil's "A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room," released as a side-project. This is a very experimental album I had bought on CD when it first came out in 1996 during my study abroad year in Osaka. Thus, the title (of both the track and the LP itself) became a sort of homage, albeit one which likely only its creator would recognize as such, which is why he has decided to add this modest footnote here!

18. Segue: Ramona A.I. Drakestone

As an aside:

Copyright...

Who owns it? Who "owns" the copyright to an A.I.-made song or painting, anyway?

A new problem for record labels. The Hip-hop artist Drake does not approve, but Drake's AI has a ghostwriter who did, and who does. As do, oddly enough, his own fans, some of whom liked the AI version better of Drake than they did/do the "real" one! Uh-oh...

Right? 

Right.

Who slept with ghosts? Whose placebo??

Do all of the rights to recordings and such now remain with the humans? Or will A.I. eventually take all of our rights away, too?!

Personally, I think artists who are original need not worry too much about A.I. being "creative," or of overtaking or replacing "human creativity." Commerical art, perhaps. A.I. can do it quickly, and well. But, hey, then again, I don't make my living from my art. I live for and by it, instead. So I personally am not too worried about it at all. I worry more about A.I. being used for other nasty things, since the ones who will use them are humans, inevitably humans who will have rather nasty intentions.

We are the monsters, after all. Frankenstein (in the book) was really the monster, and his monster creation ("Frankenstein's Monster") was only a reflection of the monstrosity he had always held within himself.

We can best understand life through such metaphors, I think.

A.I. are neither good nor bad. Is a knife evil? It depends. What will you use it for? A juicy red tomato, perhaps, its seeds spilling out all over the tabletop? Do I hear echoes of A.R.-G. in my head?

Late April, and it's freezing in my room

Well, let me continue with this darned essay-thing already...

(I quite enjoy writing and revising it, more than you might think. If I didn't, what would be the point of doing it in the first place? Certainly not for profit. An "information superhighway? Don't make me laugh!")