SKYGGE - Hello World
Creative French collective SKYGGE led by composer, author and producer Benoit Carré assembled a roster of stars including Canadian chart-topper Kiesza and Belgian pop sensation Stromae on their debut album ‘Hello World’, out on 12th January via Flow Records and distributed by IDOL, with its vinyl version to follow up in March. Composed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and started as a research project called Flow-Machines, ‘Hello World’ is the first multi-artist commercial album using AI technologies to create new, exciting and compelling music.
Flow-Machines researchers were developing algorithms to capture and reproduce musical styles, when the huge potential of what eventually became ‘Hello World’, captured the attention of SKYGGE and other musicians who joined the team. Last year saw the release of ‘Daddy’s Car’, a song in the style of the Beatles, as well as the less conventional title ‘Mr. Shadow’, which set the tone of the album. As more musicians joined in and artists took control, what started as a scientific project became a music album. The album follows the recently released single ‘Hello Shadow’ feat. Kiesza, composed by Stromae alongside top notch production team, The Bionix and SKYGGE, which gained over a million streams within two weeks of release. The track made it into fifteen different Spotify’s ‘New Music Friday’ Playlists, and grabbed the attention of publications such as DJ Mag and Your EDM.
Comprising of fifteen songs created by artists including NZCA Lines’ Michael Lovett, Mercury Prize-nominated C.Duncan and Canadian folk artist Kyrie Kristmanson, ‘Hello World’, is the result of the interaction between musicians combining their diverse skills and explore AI tools to help with their creative process under the creative direction of SKYGGE. Produced, engineered and mixed with the help of Christine And The Queens and Metronomy affiliates Ash Workman – who took the parts created by SKYGGE and the other artists creative work with Flow Machines adding additional production with Michael Lovett – the album is a versatile body of work, which disassembles the idea of pop music as we know it. Loosely inspired by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Shadow’, the lyrics of the songs were sometimes generated and sometimes written by artists. “We asked all the vocalists on the album to read the tale to find inspiration for their lyrics,” explained SKYGGE. While the album’s title ‘Hello World’ “is a reference to the first program a beginner writes when learning a new programming language.
It made sense for these to be Artificial Intelligence’s first words in mainstream music.” SKYGGE is the story of metamorphoses; from music to data, from neuron networks to musical notes, and from a scientific project to a pop-music album. Born from the creative minds of Benoit Carré a.k.a. SKYGGE and François Pachet. The latter is a leading expert on the application of Artificial Intelligence in the world of popular music. Whilst Benoit Carré writes songs for French stars like Françoise Hardy, Johnny Hallyday and Imany, as well as producing his own music. Sharing the same taste for melodic, harmonic and timbre twists that make pop songs catchy and compelling, the two friends brought together their different creative backgrounds and experiences to explore new creative sparks; one wants to capture them, the other wants to provoke them. ‘Hello World’ is not just the first multi-artist commercial album created using AI tools, its unique sound and pop sensibility of its singles makes it a landmark music project not only in the history of technology but also in music creation.
