Image from Warp Records
Celebrated UK electronic music artist, Sqaurepusher has collaborated with a team of Japanese robotics engineers to create a 5 track EP entitled 'Music for Robots'. The EP, which is available on Warp records features music composed by Squarepusher and played by the Z-Machines robot band. The line up consists of 'Mach', a guitarist' with 78 fingers who can play at speeds of over 1000BPM, 'Ashura', the 22 armed drummer and 'Cosmo', the keyboard player.
Squarepusher said of the project "Each of the robotic devices involved in the performance of this music has its own specification which permits certain possibilities and excludes others - the robot guitar player for example can play much faster than a human ever could, but there is no amplitude control. In the same way that you do when you write music for a human performer, these attributes have to be borne in mind - and a particular range of musical possibilities corresponds to those attributes. Consequently, in this project familiar instruments are used in ways which till now have been impossible.”
The visual and physical results are quite amazing both for fans of his music (like me), or those simply those interested in robotics.
Watch the video below of the song 'Sad robot goes funny'.
Warp have also released a short 'making of' video which alludes to more detail about how the project came together.
Music for robots is available through Warp records from April 8th 2014.
http://warp.net/records/squarepusher/squarepusher-music-for-robots
