Right- bear with me on this one. I’ve been up most of the night with flu/covid/the horrors.
In our current dystopia where the likes of PALANTIR are using AI to eliminate the need for human oversight in the military killchain- this might seem like a pretty trifling affair- and yet this is the one that’s causing me those most fear and discombobulation right now.
You might recognise the album cover below. It dropped about three days ago and instantly became a meme (because of course it did- oh my giddy aunt). People have been clowning on it non-stop and it went viral in way that can perhaps seem calculated in retrospect, achieving a level of exposure absolutely unheard of for a debut album by a one-man Black Metal band from Eastern Europe.
Then of course people got curious and gave it a listen, and well shit – it turns out to be pretty damn solid. Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymBY101fxaU
It’s definitely inspired by the likes of Këkht Aräkh, and not exactly paradigm shattering, but I listened to the whole thing and enjoyed it. It’s not mind-blowing, but in every respect is hits the beats, parameters and expectations we have from a contemporary raw black metal album. And it does so with relative aplomb. Opening track ‘Knight without a Name’ is a particular highlight, and on first listen it seems to seed the album with an overture of sorts that recurs in echoing melodies through the LP.
And this sentiment was echoed by a lot of people. Came for the goofy cover- stayed for the wicked music.
This is when shit gets weird. Claims start circulating that the cover is AI generated. You know how I feel about this stuff so I start to look closer, and yeah- I can see it. A strange wrinkle around the eyes for such a young face, a waxy smudginess to the makeup, an unnatural sheen for even plastic roses. But even though I suspect it to be true – I can’t be sure.
Then comes the bombshell – a group of people emerge online claiming that not only is the cover AI generated but the entire album is. The music, lyrics, and vocals. All AI generated.
This claim emerged out of a long running thread on a facebook page called ‘AI Generated Nonsense’ (a post which perhaps tellingly- has been deleted since yesterday). This then led to a range of claims and responses in all forums where this album appears, that run the gamut from ‘AI with human vocals’ to ‘AI assisted’ to ‘it’s ‘all AI Slop’.
They didn’t provide any real evidence beyond their theorising about how certain programs may have been used, and backed up their assertions with empty claims that they themselves had come up with similar results. But nonetheless- I got reaaaallly fucking spooked.
I look into this dude, and this album drops from nowhere with no previous web presence. A bit more digging shows it may be attributable to a guy who had another project in 2023 that definitely has some synthetic or ‘assisted’ elements to the sound. But I cannot be sure. Claims shoot across message boards either purporting to prove or debunk the theory based upon using other AI models to ‘detect AI’. The whole thing is pretty unprecedented, and wildly alarming.
If this AI- gen claim is true, then we have crossed a terrifying Rubicon and now my entire sense of ontology needs to be reworked to accommodate the fact that AI has now reached a point where it has created music I enjoyed, thought was human, and allowed to resonate with me. I cannot possibly reconcile that with my current understanding of creativity, expression, or the human experience. This might be enough to trigger a pretty severe ideological crisis and a reckoning with how I understand the notion of art and its origins.
On the other hand, if this is just a cynical marketing ploy to further drive engagement (like the cover, perhaps) then- whilst less abhorrent- it’s still a terrible indictment of the creative process within the contemporary attention economy.
I’ve probably put too much thought into this, but I can’t help but think that no matter what the outcome is in this case – this is a harbinger of our new normal. I have chosen this example cos it really hit home with me as a musician, but pretty soon we’re going to be doing it in every facet of our lives, every single day, when confronted with any piece of media, information, or communication.
Is this real? Can I trust my senses? What does real even mean any more?
Shit is going to get incredibly weird, incredibly quickly – and it scares the ever-loving fuck out of me.
Andi Lennon
Mongol Cult 
This was created by the guy who put out music under the Shinagawalove name in 2023. Looks like he mostly scrubbed it from the internet but the only album Shinagawalove put out also has a song called “Vortex” which includes the same exact melody in it’s outro as the bridge in Draugveil’s version of “Vortex”. Additional the user adding stuff to Bandcamp and Metal Archives has the handle pers0nalcage. “Personal Cage” is a track on the Shinagawalove album. So there’s a human behind this very clearly. Not only that but a human who has refined his sound and has used the same melody over multiple releases. Now that doesn’t preclude the potential for AI use, but I believe it makes it unlikely to be totally created by AI. My impression is that none of this album was played on actual instruments (i.e. I suspect it’s all midi) but that it was at least partially, if not wholely, arranged by the artist and not AI.
This may not clear things up entirely, and I do hope no AI was used to create this, but I think a collage of AI art arranged by human hands is closer to “real” art than the AI images themselves. Perhaps that’s the case here. And perhaps it’s more an argument against the use of midi only music because it sounds like what AI would generate.
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This is a great over-all assessment of the situation. Thank you for writing this. There are a lot of moving parts here, and it’s comforting to see someone else attempting to grapple with this debacle in a somewhat methodical way.
I guess what this boils down to for me is the unease of uncertainty. If this really is AI (and I’m not just talking about the artwork), then I’ll have to live with knowing that I enjoyed and believed something that is a complete fabrication. To take it a step further, and bearing in mind that everything we experience in life must have some sort of affect on us, I could theoretically be influenced in my own music by something completely lifeless.
Regardless of how this all turns out- and I sure as hell hope that this ends up being a great big misunderstanding-, I don’t know if I can bring myself to listen to this LP again.
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It is a huge worry! But remember whe people though synth music wasn’t music? Is there some creativity in using AI creatively to produce music which appeals to musicians like yourself? Of course thst doesn’t address the issue of competition and recognition of work musos. I really don’t know enough to comment.
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Let’s get weird baby!
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Když o tom tolik přemýšlíte, tak je to umění.
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