If a voice assistant were to learn to speak as a human infant does, through vocal experimentation and play, what might that sound like? And if this learning process were to unfold in the context of an experimental avant-fusion band, what kind of unexpected and unconventional music might be the result?

Questions such as these are interrogated and – perhaps – even answered throughout composer Kaj Duncan David’s new work bearing the playfully unassuming title, Some Songs, which was commissioned and produced by Scenatet in collaboration with Frequenz Festival. The music takes the listener on a trip through places that are at once both humorous and delicately moving. Starting where David’s solo album All Culture Is Dissolving (2021) left off, this new concert-length work takes his exploration of the link between artificiality and reality to its next logical step. Inspired by emergent AI-technology and cyber-cultural references ranging from vaporwave aesthetics and techno-shamanistic visions to the sound design of computer games, Some Songs deconstructs the dichotomy between human and non-human.

Performing vocals and keys himself, Kaj Duncan David will be leading a small electro-quartet completed by EWI (electronic wind instrument), MIDI percussion, and electric guitar. The work is commissioned by SPOR festival and Frequenz Festival and will be premiered at SPOR festival May 2024 and will tour to Frequenz Festival, Kiel and KM28, Berlin May 2024 and HCMF November 2024.

Performers: Vicky Wright (EWI), Mikkel Schou (gui), Matias Seibæk (perc), Kaj Duncan David (pno & voc)
Composer: 
Kaj Duncan David
Text: Maikon Kempinski

Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Sounds Now, Danish Arts Foundation and KODA Culture.