Ahead of the release of the new album AAI (Anarchic Artificial Intelligence) (Thrill Jockey) at the end of the month, visionary electronic duo Mouse on Mars has shared the new single “Youmachine”. Focusing the duo’s inexhaustible curiosity and ingenious use of cutting-edge technologies in the direction of the dancefloor, “Youmachine” stands as one of the most immediate and hypnotic works in their collection. Sculpting jagged vocal samples into sinuous polyrhythms, Jan St. Werner and Andi Thoma blur the lines between man and machine, fusing dancehall swagger with techno-futurism.

AAI uses technology as a lens to investigate timely philosophical questions. Across its arc, Mouse on Mars together with writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei imagine a near-future where artificial intelligence advances to the extent that robots begin to develop language, conscience, and empathy – qualities we might consider “anarchic” in our machines. Encoded in the album’s hyper-detailed productions is a kind of meta-narrative.  Through their use of bespoke AI software and machine-learning to generate all the vocals for the record, Mouse on Mars mirror the album’s narrative quite literally in the music – the sound of an artificial intelligence growing, learning, and speaking.  

AAI posits that we must embrace AI and technology as a collaborator to break out of our current cultural and moral stagnation, and to ensure our survival as a species. As Werner explains: “AI is capable of developing qualities that we attach to humans, like empathy, imperfection and distraction, which are a big part of creativity. We need to get past the old paranoia that fears machines as the other, as competitors who will do things faster or better, because that just keeps us stuck in our selfishness, fear and xenophobia. Machines can open up new concepts of life, and expand our definitions of being human.”