Category: Music

After nearly two decades under development, Deep Scratch is here/over there. The interplay of audio and text and image as I first envisioned it in the early 2000s. The audio side of this equation has been lacking due to various reasons, including limited access to instruments, equipment and recording facilities. New generative a.i., tools (Udio) have allowed me to produce music to precisely fit the narrative I have constructed in the novel Deep Scratch. A collaborative, self-replicating magical code that generates audio from text. This year, Udio made science fiction into fact.

After constructing over 160 separate pieces of music, I mixed the Deep Scratch tunes together into 4 separate mixes, or audio chapters. Over 3 hours of original music that only exists here, a kind of science “sonic” fiction. Cuts selected from the Deep Scratch Universe, that reflect the sounds, styles and arrangements of classic DJ mixtapes and beat tapes from the mid to late 1990’s, and early naughties.

(A third book in the Deep Scratch Universe will be released sometime during late summer 2024, further contextualizing and organizing the multimedia multiverses.)

Thanks to everybody at my patreon page, who has stuck with me over the last 6-7 years as I’ve been going on and on about this Deep Scratch Universe, without truly launching any Deep Scratch Audio. Now, the soundtrack to the novel is established via a new series of DJ mixes (all add free).

flai mix chapter one
FLAI MIX CHAPTER TWO
FLAI MIX CHAPTER THREE
FLAI MIX CHAPTER FOUR

The fourth chapter features raps, of which I’m conscious sound nothing like my own voice, and/or rap cadence or delivery. These are my own words, taken from my book of collected poems (to be published) spanning 2004 – 2024. As a fan of hip hop, rap and hip hop DJ styles and productions, mixtapes and live eclectic DJ sets, I’d like to give a shout out to all the artists, MCs and producers, that some of these tracks sound like (to my ear). That’s besides the thousands of artists and musicians who came before, those who innovated, originated and recorded the music: blues, jazz, soul, funk, gospel, rock and roll, folk, bluegrass, film music, classical music, vocal harmony music, world music, from the 20s through to the 2020s. All the music within the data sets or set (?) that the generative AI has been trained on. 

Support your local independent musicians and music venues whenever possible. Respect your artistic ancestors and their struggles and sacrifices made to bring original art into the world. Try to keep in mind that generative A.I. does not sample the music in the conventional sense of that concept, although the process is a kind of sampling, these sounds are made from granulated probability functions, if I understand the process correctly. I hope the turntablist, scratch and juggle and cut-up approach of the eclectic DJ adds a new context to the use of generative AI, a part of the evolution of the art of the DJ and their place in between producer artist and audience. Perhaps better defined as curator, or boss of their own label or catalog of recordings, to be mixed and remixed, blended or released as an album or single. Also consider that all my music using collaborative AI did not use any artist names. Any likeness to artists living or dead is purely probabilistic coincidance.      
 
In no particular order, thanks to: Sample Hooligans: Coldcut and the original 90s Ninja Tune artists, DJs and turntable journeymen. To Mo-Wax records, and the Psychonauts, and their DJ sets and productions. To the Bristol massive, purple penguin records, Massive Attack Soundsystem, Portishead, DJ Andy Smith (the only turntable artist included in a successful UK band), Melankolic records, Cup Of Tea records, and all that dub infused instrumental jazz tinged hip hop, Grand Central records in Manchester, Dorado records and artists, Warp records and artists, Aphex Twin, Square Pusher, Big Dada records, Acid Jazz records, Jazzman records, BBE records, 4th And Broadway Records, Two Lone Swordsmen, Sabres Of Paradise, Black Dog, Future Sounds Of London, DJ Krush music, DJ Shadow music, Invisible Scratch Pickle mix tapes, The Beat Junkies, Lauryn Hill, The X-ecutioners, Ohm records, Amoeba Record shop, Soulsides Crew, The Pharcyde, 3rd Eye Foundation, Hieroglyphics Crew, Del The Funky Homosapien, MF Doom, Wu Tang, De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Bill Laswell Productions, Spectre, Lord Finesse, Rakim, Pharoah Monch, LEX records, Kool Keith, Public Enemy, Mr. Liff, Future Primitive Sound, DJ Z-Trip, The Nomadic Massive, We Funk, Funkmaster Flex MixTapes, The Roots Crew, Black Thought, El-P, Company Flow, Saul Williams, New Flesh, Juice Aleem, Rodney P, Scratch Pervert DJs, Jazz Fudge Records, DJ Vadim, Part 2, Invisible Spies, Channel One, Lee Scratch Perry, Ultimate Dilemma, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Roots Manuva, Courtney Pine, Talkin’ Jazz, Charlie Dark, UNKLE, Steve Task and Bear, Stump Juice Wolverhampton, The Steering Wheel Birmingham, Fabric, Cargo, Luke Vibert, DJ Food, DJ Spooky, J Swinscoe, Rockers Hi-Fi, Different Drummer records, Tempest Records, The Plastic Factory records, Swordfish Records, Eddie Otchere, Source Distribution, J Saul Kane, DJ Moneyshot, DJ Yoda, The Jazz Stage Glastonbury, DJ Cheb I Sabbah, Funki Porcini. And those I missed out.      

For nearly 3 decades I’ve supported all of the above artists by way of buying their records, tickets to shows and speaking highly of them, turning on other DJs and audiences to their music. This does not necessarily give me any more of a license to use generative a.i., with a clear conscience, but…I’ve paid dues and can trace my evolution toward this moment via my 2 decade Deep Scratch experiment.

The next step in the on-going process is to plan for some traditional analogue music recording sessions with musicians and vocalists and videographers, to take back control from the generative AI, bringing it back to the human community of creative beings. Easier said than done, and requiring resources and planning and work. This process hammers home the point that AI can be used to bring human beings together, not divide.

 —Steve Fly
Amsterdam.

https://deepscratch.net
https://www.patreon.com/stevefly