Gilles Aubry’s new album L’Makina is a haunting soundscape that combines AI-generated sound textures with modular synths. Structured in two parts, the piece explores the spectral possibilities of a virtual sound model developed using a machine learning algorithm, in collaboration with Moroccan musicians Ali Faiq and Idr Basrou.

The title, L’Makina, references a 1930s song about the phonograph by Amazigh musician L’Haj Belaid. In the original song, Belaid marvels at the machine’s ability to replicate human speech with uncanny precision, prompting the poet to question whether he should continue composing verses. This reflection resonates with current debates surrounding artificial intelligence and the interplay between humans and machines.

 

Review by Chain DLK (2025)

L’Makina invites us to really listen – and to think. This is not a mere homage to mechanized sounds or a cold exercise in electronic music. Rather, it’s a profound meditation on the uneasy, ambivalent dance between humans and their machines, through the lens of a nearly century-old Moroccan song that anticipated these very questions long before AI and algorithms colonized our imaginations. Aubry’s sound world here is simultaneously intimate and vast, with moments of quiet reflection that bloom into dense, almost ritualistic soundscapes.

 

Credits
Release date: May 15 2025
Pre-order on https://corvorecords.bandcamp.com/album/gilles-aubry-lmakina

Gilles Aubry – synthesizers and composition
Mastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering
Cover design by Sofia Fahli at Edition Atonale
LC 98739