io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) © 2011 Han-earl Park

In this week’s newsletter from the Downtown Music Gallery, Bruce Lee Gallanter teases a Turing test around ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) with Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder:

…More rare is that these three human musicians are improvising with a machine called io 0.0.1 beta…. Io was constructed by Han-earl Park and is an integral part of this quartet…. The music made by this quartet is improvised and does make sense. Both saxists work well together, cautiously bending their notes around one another while Han-earl also plays fragmented sounds on his guitar. Io also adds its own diverse yet fractured sounds to the blend. On “Pioneer: Dance” Mr. [Bruce] Coates plays slightly twisted alto sax while io adds similar textural sounds. If I didn’t know better, I would think that this was a successful session of European improv by a quartet of gifted yet thoughtful [human] players who take their time to explore similar textures and terrain together. I am not so sure that machines will ever take the place of human improvisers in the future, however this disc shows that someone is working in the right direction. [Read the rest…]

— Bruce Lee Gallanter (Downtown Music Gallery)

And this is a good time to announce that ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) released by SLAM Productions is now available from the Downtown Music Gallery in addition to Wayside Music and directly from Slam. [More info…] [All reviews…]