Documentary Review: 'The Computer Accent'

The Computer Accent (2022)

Directed by Riel Roch-Decter & Sebastian Pardo

Written by Documentary

Starring YACHT

Release Date October 21st, 2022

Album Chain Tripping Released 2019

I have no idea what Chain Tripping means and neither does the band YACHT, though it is the name of their 2019 record. It's a pair of nonsense words mashed together and yet, Chain Tripping seems to fit perfectly the album it gives title to. When you listen to Chain Tripping and you find the groove that appeals to you, especially on tracks like Scatterhead, you feel like you are tripping and you could call it a chain as one song flows seamlessly into the next in an otherworldly rave.

Chain Tripping is, as far as I know, the first and only fully A.I produced full length album. The band YACHT, an acronym that means Young Americans Challenging Technology, were looking for a challenge for their new album in 2019. Since lead singer Claire L. Evans is also an accomplished author whose most recent book chronicled the history of women in technology, futuristic ideas about artificial intelligence were certainly part of the band on a molecular level.

As they began to look at making their next record, the band took a meeting at Google where a group of Google engineers happened to be working on technology intended to produce A.I generated music. With Google's work as a baseline and the work of futurists and theorists in the field of A.I at their disposal, YACHT, which also includes Jona Bechtolt and Robert Kieswetter, began the painstaking process of making an album collaboration with Artificial Intelligence.

The band then began a painstaking process for planning the record that would become, Chain Tripping. The first thing the band did was set some ground rules that would determine that the record fully came from their A.I collaborator.

Rule 1 No adding notes, no adding harmonies, and no jamming

Rule 2 The band could choose instruments, transform melodies, cut up melodies.

These rules in place, the band set about breaking apart every song they'd created in their previous 17 years as a band and entered the songs into the A.I which would then use those elements of the YACHT catalog to create a series of computer generated melodies that would be the base line of a song, essentially the instrumental tracks for the record. Another rule the band created for themselves was that they were allowed to only use sounds that they could reproduce in live performance using some form of instrument.

In one of the most fascinating aspects the documentary, The Computer Accent, we watch as Bechtolt and Kieswetter teach themselves these songs. It's a process that requires them to relearn how to play instruments they'd played all of their lives in order to re-produce the melodies generated by the A.I. In one incredibly telling instance, Bechtolt hears a computer generated melody that will require him to play the drums in a way that is counter-intuitive to the way most, if not all drummers, approach playing the drums.

Similarly, lead singer Clair Evans had quite a challenge in mastering the A.I generated lyrics. In order to generate an albums' worth of lyrics from the standard of current A.I, the band needed to use not only their own back catalog, but hundreds of songs from bands they'd admired and that had influenced the band members over the years. With the aid of technologist and poet Ross Goodwin, lyrics were generated and then Evans began a painstaking process of cutting the lyrics and rearranging them without changing the basic lines created by the A.I.

What Evans did is very similar to the process David Bowie used to write some of his most unusual and memorable lyrics. As detailed in the recent Bowie documentary, Moonage Daydream, Bowie would cut lines from newspapers and rearrange the lines into lyrics and that would become the basis for a song. Or, Bowie would write a complete song and then cut his lyric sheets up and rearrange the lines to create something completely different and yet the same. Bottom line, it's not easy to do and it's an incredibly revealing challenge for a songwriter.

This wildly unique creative process is wonderfully detailed in the documentary, The Computer Accent. Directors' Riel Roch-Decter and Sebastien Pardo know they have a wonderful idea for a documentary and they do their best work in staying out of the way and letting the band's work carry the story. There are aspects where it is clear they are trying to bring a wider visual element to the movie but it never gets in the way of the core of the piece, the remarkable challenge that the band YACHT set for themselves and for modern technology.

This leads to the question: Is the record, eventually titled Chain Tripping, any good? The answer is, it's extraordinary. I was deeply skeptical. I hated the idea, I was concerned that the computer would rob the music of its soul. Instead, the technology draws the band further inside their own creation. They are challenged beyond any challenge I can imagine them facing had they conceived of the record in the same fashion they'd made their previous records. Chain Tripping is a lavish soundscape, part rave and part poetry slam session.

The lyrics though they are nonsensically brought together brilliantly demonstrate the sonic chemistry between the right voice and the right music. Instead of worrying about the meaning of the song, consider how Claire L. Evans' voice is another instrument in the band and the way that instrument simmers beautifully among the other instruments, bass, drums, synth, guitar, and other instruments needed to recreate the strange A.I suggestions of sound.

Chain Tripping is a brilliant record and The Computer Accent is the perfect accompaniment to the record. The record and the documentary film inform each other beautifully. Witnessing the challenge of artistic creation and the vibrant, lively and lush result of that challenge moved me deeply. Though YACHT has been working since 2002, I had never heard of the band before this documentary and now, I'm obsessed. I've been listening to Chain Tripping on repeat and wrestling with my feelings over A.I generated music. The process is fascinating and I feel that The Computer Accent and Chain Tripping deserve a revered place in the evolution of A.I and art.

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