Apr15
Last September, UK-based electronic composer Squarepusher made waves across the music industry by creating a 5-minute song played entirely by a series of robots called the Z-Machines. These machines, created by a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo, were designed specifically to play music, and feature a guitarist with 78 fingers, a 22-armed drummer, and a pianist that plays the keyboard with lasers. Squarepusher’s first song, “Sad Robots Go Funny”, was originally created to help promote the Z-Machines last September, but he has since gone even further with the robot band and created a five-track album, titled “Music For Robots”!
The album was released on April 8th, and pushes the robots’ abilities even further with complex compositions. Alongside this release, Squarepusher has released a video detailing the making of the album, including behind-the-scenes looks at the robots and how they function. The album was an attempt to see if the Z-Machines could create emotionally engaging music alongside performing impossible feats with the instruments, lending a sense of humanity to the otherwise sterilized machines.
Tags: Music for robots, Squarepusher, Z-Machines, ZIMA