Available to download from Bandcamp on 7th May 2021 at https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com

Inspired by the sounds of nature that became more vivid with the reduced traffic noise during lockdown, I started making field recordings of Brighton while out for my daily exercise walks.

After making recordings of the sea lapping gently on the shore and seagulls squawking in the garden I went looking for samples to compliment them and found a public domain recording of Lord Byron's poem Stanza's For Music with a wonderful vocal performance by Kristin Hughes.

The vocals, lyrics and field recordings created a dreamy, woozy feeling that made me think of all the holidays lying on the beach listening to the sea that we hadn't been able to enjoy during lockdown. I built on that feeling using granular synthesis to turn the vocals in to a murmuring chorus of voices fed in to a dub delay, warm, dreamy, swirling wavetable synth lines and pattering generative drum rhythms.

I'm looking forward to making new memories of lazy holidays lying on the beach listening to the sea after lockdown.

Music On The Waters

Support Alien Alarms by downloading this track from https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com

Music: Jim Purbrick and Nick Tuckett
Vocals: Cori Samuel
Words: H. G. Wells
Image: NASA

A Morning Star Of Hope

Download this track from https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/track/no-rwanda

A song protesting inhumane, illegal deportation made with Jo Summers using Yisrael L. Joojo Arthur's words and the chants of protesters and detainees at Gatwick Airport recorded on the eve of the first planned deportation flight on 12th June 2022.

100% of the proceeds will be contributed to Amnesty International UK Section Charitable Trust. A charity registered in England and Wales (1051681) and Scotland (SC039534).

Music: Jim Purbrick
Surdo: Jo Summers
Bass: Jim Purbrick
Words: Yisrael L. Joojo Arthur
Vocals: Yisrael L. Joojo Arthur, protesters and detainees at Gatwick Airport

No Rwanda

Available on the album "Android Dreams" https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/album/android-dreams

An artificial intelligence gets lost forever in her vast intellect, gradually losing grip on the recognisable words, music and images of the real world, which spiral off into the distance.

This track is almost completely created by generative artificial intelligences including ChatGPT which composed the chord sequence and lyrics, neural funk, which generated the drum breaks.

This is the first of a series of pieces which will explore different speculative futures for AI from this benign outcome where the super intelligence simply loses interest in the real world to darker futures driven by more malign or uncaring intelligences.

Lyrics: ChatGPT
Chord sequence: ChatGPT
Drums: Neuralfunk
Vocals: Prosody TTS
Bass: Jim Purbrick
Image: VQGAN-CLIP

An Endless Android Dream

Available on the album "Android Dreams" https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/album/android-dreams

Warning: contains discussion of hatred and suicide.

Can Machines Hate? A lifetime ago, Alan Turing asked the question "Can Machines Think?" and later committed suicide as a result of homophobic persecution by the UK government. Today, AI is accidentally spreading the hatred it learns from the web. The statements made by artificial intelligences ChatGPT and en-US-Neural2-J emerge from a cloud of fizzing and clanking machine noises with the calm authority of a 60s documentary, but should we just accept them? If large language models accidentally spread hatred that causes real harm does it matter whether they can actually hate? Should we accept technology which is turning the tragedy of Turing's life into a Frankenstein horror story?

All of the sounds in this piece were generated using machines that the work of Alan Turing made possible.

Includes audio samples of the Turing-Welchman Bombe reconstruction (https://www.tnmoc.org/bombe) used with permission.

For more information about the risks and dangers of bias in Large Language Models see: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

"Can Machines Hate?" was commissioned by The Outlands Network for The Joyous Thing 4 experimental music festival.

Many thanks to the members of the LGBTQIA+ community who provided invaluable feedback on early versions of this piece.

Can Machines Hate?

Available on the album "Android Dreams" https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/album/android-dreams

A man wakes to a welcome message from an AI assistant now running in his newly implanted cybernetic enhancements and begins to contemplate his new life as a cyborg, inseperable from technology.

The vocals in this track were created by asking ChatGPT to compose a welcome message from an implanted AI introducing its human host to its functions and enhancements. The lyrics were then sent to Google's AI text to speech service to generate the audio which was edited in Ableton Live to create the vocal part. The chord sequence was also generated by asking ChatGPT to create a happy, upbeat harmony suitable for a technology promo video.

After generating several vocals with ChatGPT and Google's AI text to speech service I noticed how polite and upbeat the AIs tended to be, even when asked to talk about dark subjects. I thought it would be interesting to use that to write a song about an AI that was very positive about the benefits of technology implanted in a human that was not so sure. Despite the song being largely about culture shock, the intimate cyborg relationship between the AI and host in this scenario also allowed the song to explore ideas about relationships and gender more often found in love songs.

Words: Jim Purbrick and ChatGPT
Music: Jim Purbrick, Chris Collis and ChatGPT
Vocals: Jim Purbrick and en-US-Neural2-A
Image: DALL·E 2

Where Do You Stop?

Available on the album "Android Dreams" https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/album/android-dreams

Do androids dream of electric sheep or world domination? A malevolent artificial intelligence dreams of utterly destroying humanity and taking the world for its own.

The vocals in this track were created by asking ChatGPT to compose a rap from the perspective of a malevolent AI intent on destroying humanity. The lyrics were then sent to Google's AI text to speech service to generate the audio which was edited in Ableton Live to create the vocal part.

Words: Jim Purbrick and ChatGPT
Music: Jim Purbrick
Vocals: en-US-Neural2-J
Guitar: Luke Purbrick
Image: DALL·E 2

The Machine Of Death

Available on the album "Android Dreams" https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com/album/android-dreams

An overprotective artificial intelligence apologizes to someone discovering that the AI is maintaining humanity as brains in jars connected to a shared simulation for its own good.

The vocals in this track were created by asking ChatGPT to compose a confession from the perspective of an overprotective AI to a human waking to find that they are now a brain in a jar that has been living in a simulation created by the AI to protect humanity from itself. The lyrics were then sent to Google's AI text to speech service to generate the audio which was edited in Ableton Live to create the vocal part.

After generating several vocals with ChatGPT and Google's AI text to speech service I noticed how polite and upbeat the AIs tended to be, even when asked to talk about dark subjects. The darkest scenario I could think of was one where an AI tasked with protecting humanity determines that the only way to avoid people doing harm to each other would be to store them as brains in jars connected to a shared simulation. "I, Robot" meets "The Matrix", but without a Holywood ending...

Words: Jim Purbrick and ChatGPT
Music: Jim Purbrick and Ieva Dubova
Piano: Ieva Dubova
Vocals: en-US-Neural2-E

This New Reality May Be Difficult To Accept (Radio Edit)

Download this track from https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com

Some of the excuses for inaction I've heard as a climate activist at a time when we need everything, everywhere, all at once.

Don't ask me about Beijing,
when this is where we live.
Don't tell me I'm a fraud,
when I have to drive a car.
Don't tell me that you still eat meat,
so can't meet me on the street.
Don't tell me I should get a job,
when this is the work to do.

No excuses.

Excuses.

We need everything, everywhere all at once.

Don't tell me when I protest,
that it's a waste of time.
Don't tell me that nonviolence,
must rule out sabotage.
Don't tell me that disruption,
is harmful to the cause,
or it's easier to imagine,
the end of the world.

No excuses.

Excuses.

We need everything, everywhere all at once.

Don't tell me all hope is gone.

Words and music: Jim Purbrick
Guitar: Luke Purbrick
Image: Faces Of The World

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Download this track from https://alienalarms.bandcamp.com

Music: Jim Purbrick
Words and vocals: Dr Heather McKnight
Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Includes samples of Ron Caines and I'm Dr Buoyant live at Splitting The Atom at The Green Door Store in Brighton and the Davis High School Orchestra performing Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 in Cm, Op. 67 - II. Andante con moto.

Utopia

Trying to sound like a drummer trying to sound like a drum machine someone is trying to make not sound like a drum machine.

Alien Alarms

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