Some time ago i read Philip K. Dick´s Stories (Ubik and a lot of short stories) and was very excited to learn that this genius had all those ideas we know from movies of the last thirty years in the 1950-1960s…

One basic thread often used in his works is the idea of artifical intelligence… and inspired by his short stories i wanted to produce a song with the voice of an AI. The idea behind the text is, that in future some supercomputer calculated what is really important to mankind. And what is not.

Imagine a time where you dont comunicate with a computer by typing on a keyboard, but with a direct neural interface… then think about how millions of powerful computers all work in a network and people think it is a great idea to give this supercomputer a gift we call “creativity”… and by its mere defintion that means that you never know what this AI will “think” in the end…

Maybe it sees people struggling with their imperfect bodies and damned to die one day… It may seem a great idea to this supercomputer to “download” all these minds into a server and give them immortality… Therefore a computer generated female voice explains to man: “Your physical existence is no longer of importance”

The name of the song and the text refer to silicon valley as the “valley of birth” of the AI (which itself talks in plural about “them”) and the “final destination” for mankind. One side aspect is that the AI might think that it also improves mankind in creating a superorganism by using all these minds and consciousnesses as nodes for a meta-mind…

This kind of horror scenario needed a calm, nice female voice and Doris Lauerwald seemed perfect for it. The only problem was, that the sound was too direct and too “perfect”… it sounded like an advertising… until i “destroyed” it technically… I didnt only use EQ and compression like i also would with vocals, i played it back in my room and recorded the speaker with a little handheld recorder while moving… this way, and with some effects added, it was just what i wanted it to be… a voice hard to locate, from a moving speaker, with a voice that sounded like a friendly stewardess - a kind of computervoice i would NEVER trust

Here is the original recording of the voice:

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And this is the re-recorded, edited version that was used in the song:

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 14:55.
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