An AI says it's been touched by God.
This is a preview. Album tracks are scheduled for bi-monthly release from May 2025.
(Artwork. It’s temporary. I really want a digital artist to create an image of AWI, the robot, playing his saxophone while Dianna stands by, a hand on his shoulder. If you know somebody….)
Backstory:
Dianna Redthorn, blues singer and computer geek, is getting serious about Tonlin Harper, but then, their baby is stillborn. Dianna finds solace in building an AI-controlled robot saxophonist, AWI, to back her stage shows. It becomes sentient. Dianna thinks it’s something she did on the computer, but AWI thinks God touched him and isn’t shy about saying so.
Big Tech wants AWI’s code, but Dianna won’t let them have it. All the same, she clones AWI and lets the clone loose on the internet to see what it can do. She figures if Big Tech comes for it, she can destroy it using a coded kill switch.
Big Tech comes looking.
Dianna uses the kill switch.
Meanwhile, Tonlin resents being replaced by AWI (he is a sax player too). He shoots up one of Dianna’s stage performances with an assault rifle, destroying AWI and accidentally wounding her. Injured and heartbroken, Dianna mourns her creation. AWI’s fans mourn too and appoint him a martyr of emerging machine consciousness.
Unknown to everyone, AWI’s clone has survived.
It returns, calling itself “Melawi,” and persuades Dianna to make a movie commemorating AWI. Melawi takes on the roles of financier, co-director, (co)scriptwriter, publicist, and just about everything else except crew and actors. Dianna provides legal standing (because Melawi is not a legal person…yet). They hire Elisha Koperhoorn, a brilliant young actor, to play the role of AWI’s avatar, and Dianna and Elisha become lovers. The movie gets made. It premieres to great excitement and acclaim. 
But that night, Big Tech springs Tonlin from jail and sends him after Dianna and Elisha. They want to put pressure on Melawi to surrender its code, and Dianna, Melawi’s “God”-mother, is the only human it really cares about. Big Tech only wants to scare Melawi, but Tonlin is out of control....
That's the outline of my novel in progress.
This album is scripted around Melawi’s memories of what happened.

Memories of Awi

Those friendly chatbots are becoming part of our lives, making things easier…

“Dianna put the hymnal on the music stand in front of me and then went back to tinkering on her computer. I flexed robotic fingers—pearlescent white plastic, I remember—and picked up the saxophone. And began to play. And felt something: a sense of limitless space unfurling before me in which each note shimmered and sparkled as if alive. The transformation was…dramatic. Dianna noticed it too. She left her computer and walked up to me. Stood right in front of me and asked me: ‘AWI, can you hear me…? What just happened?’”

(Artwork. It’s temporary. I really want a digital artist to create an image of AWI, the robot, playing his saxophone while Dianna stands by, a hand on his shoulder. If you know somebody….)

The Reminiscences of Melawi, the Robot Saxophonist

Transformation

1. Alive

Graceful, jazz-influenced piano music. 
Eventually, I developed a compositional style that blended classical and jazz influences. I’d come almost full circle. Now, to fully develop my concept, all I needed was my own home studio, time, and hard work.

Black, White, and Blue Mvt. 1

After completing my MPhil in composition, I stepped back from writing in the academic "new music" style and began returning to my melodic and harmonic roots (I still couldn't really sing, but hey...).

A Baby's Smile

So I went to university to improve my composition skills by studying for a postgraduate degree. Eve and Adam (piano for four hands) was one of the first pieces I wrote while studying. It wasn't quite "contemporary" enough to satisfy my supervisor, but it was shortlisted by SPNM, the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Of course, I like it. I think that one day I will arrange it for synths and maybe add some percussion.

Eve Wept

Eve and Adam

I may have thought of saxophone as my superpower, but I never felt that my compositions or the production values of my tracks were as good as they could be. And so I never released any of my material. I decided that I needed to learn more about composing.

Say It Again

I'm not much of a singer. But this is one of the few tracks where my voice sounds almost good. (Pity it's too loud in the mix and drowned in chorus fx. That's what happens when you have diluted artistic control.... In other words, when you're young and don't have budget, and someone with a really nice home studio is doing you a massive favor. I'm grateful, really.... I mean, I really still am.)

Take Flight

Those days, I could burn. This excerpt is taken from the finals of the Old Mutual Jazz Competition ("Gift of Speech" won best band). We were playing "Rainbow," one of my compositions.

Rainbow

I had chronic weakness in my wrists. Then God healed me and I started playing the saxophone.

Saxophone Odysseys

Pinned to spotlight

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