This video on Seattle’s KEXP has music fans celebrating human creativity in an age of AI slop

Seattle independent radio station KEXP prides itself on being a leader in new music discovery. They may have moved the bar up several notches with a band and video that is going viral on YouTube.

The performance by Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine, playing live during the Trans Musicales festival last December in France, was uploaded to KEXP on Feb. 5. Since then it’s attracted more than 6.7 million views, making it one of the most-watched videos on the station’s channel over the past several years.

Khn de Poitrine, on microtonal guitars, and Klek de Poitrine, on drums, wear polka-dot costumes with large headpieces and elongated nose masks. The instrumental music is groovy, psychedelic, surfy and surreal, with spare, robotic vocals that sound otherworldly. A barefooted Khn de Poitrine manipulates effects pedals with his toes, and the two members communicate with triangle hand gestures.

I saw someone refer to it as “math rock” — a style of progressive indie rock “characterized by complex, unconventional time signatures, angular melodies, and intricate, often tapping-based guitar work,” as Wikipedia describes it. If that’s not geeky I don’t know what is.

The visual and musical impact is evident in what might be the greatest comment section — 38,000 and counting — I’ve waded through in some time. In an era when digital feeds are increasingly loaded with content created by artificial intelligence and promoted by big-tech algorithms, people are clearly starved for other creative humans.

• “This is what humanity can do without the hindrance of influence. This is the peak unfiltered madness of creativity.”
• “Can’t believe the most human music I’ve seen all year sounds like it’s made from another planet and dimension.”
• “First time I’ve been proud to be human in weeks.”
• “Thank God there are still humans making real art in this world.” … “Pretty sure these are aliens.”

Surely there are plenty of reasons why people are looking for an escape in today’s world. The rise of AI might be one of them. Regardless, nearly 28 minutes of sensory-altering music and video is a good reminder of what people can make with their real brains.

Turn it up.