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Kaj Duncan David’s new album ‘Only Birds Know How to Call the Sun and They Do It Every Morning', made with the Danish contemporary ensemble Scenatet, is an extraordinary work of sui generis avant-garde electronic music, exploring therelationship between language and three interrelated themes; human development, altered states of consciousness and AI / machine learning. Employing voice (vocoder, talkbox), synth, EWI (electric wind instrument), MIDI guitar and MIDI percussion, ‘Only Birds Know How…’ is focused on a timely conceptual premise, one that imagines what the linguistic progression of AI would sound like if guided by play and experimentation, rather than input data. In other words; the sound of AI learning to speak just as a human does. The album duly envisions what this cognitive process would sound like if combined with “sci-fi chamber music”. In other words; unruly, distorted, mischievous, yet strangely beautiful and compelling. The album originated with Kaj’s desire to create songs based on his interest in pre-linguistic singing and the oral transition from “pure, non-verbal vocal sound to expressive meaning”. ‘Only Birds Know How…’ was then written for ensemble and performed at the following festivals; Spor (Aarhus), Frequenz (Kiel) and Copenhagen’s MINU. The album’s source material comprises the MIDI files recorded by Kaj at MINU, material subsequently adapted during the album’s production. Out of this, Kaj and Scenatet have assembled a special symphony that lives, falters and flourishes, capturing the accretions of language and learning through the lens of the organic, the mystical and the technological. With garbled, polyphonic vocals and errant, indeterminate electronics, they embody the way language morphs and contorts, offering a captivating, surreal vista of contemporary speech, music and perception. For Kaj, ‘Only Birds Know How…’ is a “a psychedelic reimagining of how language develops, a sort of science fiction concept album depicting a consciousness forming and the states this subject passes through in the process of discovering the world”. Defining the album as a “cosmic soup” that “connects recent experiences in parenthood, mystical encounters and an ongoing interest in AI”, Kaj highlights the influence of specific ideas associated with these themes, including early language development and glossolalia (or speaking in tongues). Together, Kaj & Scenatet create speculative, futurist electronic music replete with conceptual curiosity. The album lurches through stuttering vocoder-phonetics, disassembled new age soundscapes and aleatoric synthesis, before moving into more structured, affecting but no less singular territories. Dedicated to Kaj’s daughter, with texts co-created with Brazilian performer Maikon K, ‘Only Birds Know How…’ is a remarkable detour from the conventions of languageand experimental music. Exploring the flux of communication and consciousness, Kaj and Scenatet outlay an aesthetic anomaly, illustrating an elusive, intricate and multi-layered conception. Is this a treatise on the fraught implications of AI, an ode to acid-fried transcendence or an existential rumination on parenthood? Is it all of this, none of this, or more? The answer lies within. You’ve heard machines weep, but have you heard them learning to talk?

Kaj Duncan David & Scenatet – Only Birds Know How to Call the Sun and They Do It Every Morning

Otoroku is delighted to present a remarkable, one-of-a-kind release from Swedish-Belgian sound composer, non-musician and cloud researcher, Valerie Mol, aka eurodyke (a play on the mythical Eurydice). Developed out of recordings made during Mol's performance at Cafe OTO in December 2023, The extrauniversal clouds is short record, a patchwork and a fabulation. The record, composed between 2021 and 2025, consists of one piece divided into three parts. In the first part, Jump-in see-through hoops, they are slightly saying hi, synthesized high frequency melodies and concrete sample-works join forces, an obvious collage and a lot of digital silences. In the second part, The extrauniversal clouds, Mol tells a fantasy story about living clouds that can only hear. The story is undeniably fun, but also serves to change the way the listener listens to the surrounding pieces.  The third part, Medley by clouds for pianos primarily manufactured by Yamaha, is as its title suggests a collage of recordings of improvisations performed and recorded at different venues, among them Fylkingen and Cafe OTO. It is inspired by other shorter pieces-in-series, György Kurtágs ongoing collection Játékok being an example. Spanning a wide range of sonic approaches in a markedly idiosyncratic and multifaceted style that makes a mockery of genre distinctions, The extrauniversal clouds, is a record hard to pin down but with a wealth of detail and meaning to uncover for those who dive in. -- Composed and mixed by eurodyke between 2021 and 2025Additional vocal mix by Paul PurgasSome piano recordings by Billy SteigerMastered by Oli Barrett Cover design: Victoria Sallamba, Instagram: @vicweraArtworks kindly made and provided by Helena Linder (page 2), Evelina Lindqvist Hedlund (page 4), Lorelei (page 5) Thanks to----->Paul Purgas, who enthusiastically suggested to me to release a record based on a concert I played at Cafe OTO in December 2023, and who mentored me through the process. Without Paul, you wouldn’t be reading this text. My parents, Lorelei, Malte Dahlberg, Kyra Mol, Loke Risberg, Ilaria Capalbo, Helena Linder, Hara Alonso, Cara Tolmie, Evelina Lindqvist Hedlund, april forrest lin 林森, Victoria Sallamba, Musikfabriken Uppsala, Biskops Arnö, KMH, Fylkingen, Cafe OTO, Ung Nordisk Musik, EMS

eurodyke – The extrauniversal clouds

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