Sveið is a new British free improvised trio that incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its predictably unpredictable. Latent Imprints is the debut album of the trio, featuring jazz sax player James Mainwaring (of Roller Trio), Norwegian drummer Emil Karlsen (who now runs the historic Bead Records), and sound artist, electronics player and live coder Federico Reuben (who ia Associate Professor at the University of York where he carries out interdisciplinary and practice research in music and music technology, who uses AI models trained at the University of York, Intelligent Instruments Lab in Reykjavik, and Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique – IRCAM – in Paris). The album was recorded in York in May 2024, in a single session.
Sveið states that it «imagines AI as a contemporary, post-digital myth: a repository of glitched, shape-shifting creatures whose uncanny sounds both disrupt and extend human music-making». Reuben placed microphones in front of Mainwaring and Karlsen to analyse their sound signals and let the AI models react to their sounds, with unpredictable sonic ideas. The incorporation of live AI sounds shifts the dynamics of the trio. It adds a distinct, urgent, and raw, futurist sound, which triggers the exploration of combinations of sound palettes with the acoustic sax and drums, timbre, and rhythmic patterns.
Sveið explores these new sonic options throughout eleven short pieces, all titled after mythological creatures from around the world, each spelled with a cyber twist. When you get used to the AI-generated sounds, you begin to notice the shifting roles in the trio. The rhythmic role of the drummer or the melodic articulation of the sax player are increasingly tested by – and temporarily replaced with – uncanny AI clones, who have studied their sonic palettes, Now the AI is experimenting with new, challenging, and sometimes even noisy, chaotic and frustrating, new sonic ecosystem where humans and machines negotiate in a co-creative process.
Eyal Hareuveni
James Mainwaring (saxophone), Federico Reuben (laptop improvisation, live coding). Emil Karlsen (drums)
