Soundwalk Collective become the machine on “LOVOTIC”
The new single, featuring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, is the title track of the group’s upcoming double LP, an ambitious exploration of AI arousal and intimacy.
Photo by Nan Goldin.
Soundwalk Collective is the core duo of sound art specialists Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli, plus a seemingly infinite constellation of singers, players, actors, directors, poets, philosophers, and photographers. Founded in 2000 by Crasneanscki with Merli joining in 2008, they've worked with Patti Smith, Jean-Luc Godard, Nan Goldin, and many, many others. Today, they shared details of their next project, LOVOTIC, a double LP due out April 1 on Analogue Foundation, and released its title track and lead single. The new song features Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, who starred together in Lars Von Trier's Antichrist many moons ago. The record will also include collaborations with Atom™, Lyra Pramuk, and philosopher Paul B. Preciado.
LOVOTIC, like most of Soundwalk's previous work, is more a conceptual suite than a traditional album. Its focus is the future of sex and sexuality: how our progressing reliance on artificial intelligence will someday subplant our current notions of gender, intimacy, and arousal. "Where does the impulse of preference come from?" they ask as a single, amorphous entity in a press release. "What sets of words from our vocabulary can be communicated to the AI mind to generate a new identity for desire? Could the machine be another technology that brings us closer together?”
"LOVOTIC," the single, finds Gainsbourg and Dafoe uploading to the mainframe in a disturbingly convincing performance of machine love. A hypnotic, mechanical beat pulses beneath them, and a robotic voice emits a steady ooze of zeroes and ones in the background.
Listen below.