In this episode we listen to and talk about music by Sebastian Pfeifer who is a pianist, producer and composer blending jazz, dubstep and experimental electronic music. He tells the story of how getting kicked out of classical piano lessons as a child led him to dubstep production, and eventually into jazz. 

We talk about how he uses AI tools like Neutone to transform his own voice into something strange and expressive, how he tricks Ableton's audio-to-MIDI engine to generate dense string arrangements from distorted piano recordings, and why glitchy, broken-sounding algorithms are more interesting to him than polished prompt-to-music tools like Suno.

He also shares the process behind the track Endling from his trio Endern — a one-take improvisation transcribed and re-orchestrated for saxophone and synth, ending in a chaotic crescendo of distorted drums, screaming sax and fake soprano sax generated by AI.

This episode digs into hybrid workflows, AI as a performance instrument, and the blurred lines between improvisation, composition and machine learning.

So, hi and welcome, Sebastian.

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Thanks for having me.

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I'll make a short introduction of you first and then we'll get going.

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So Sebastian Pfeiffer is a jazz pianist and electronic music producer, blending

improvisation, jazz and experimental electronic sounds.

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Under your alias, Pfeiffer, you merge genres with releases spanning jazz clubs to

avant-garde electronic scenes.

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Your recent work explores avant-garde AI-generated instruments, earning you a third place

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And one of your latest projects include the experimental album Erden and the trio Enderns

release free transcripts.

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And you have sort of a

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interesting backstory I think as I was reading your bio you went from a classical pianist

into delving into electronic music and then into jazz and then kind of back again into

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electronic music maybe you could tell a bit about that story

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So I had to take classical piano lessons when I was five and I always hated it and when I

was, I don't know, 11 or 12 my teacher actually kicked me out because I never practiced

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and I hated it.

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And I started playing drum stand and cello which I liked way much than playing piano.

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And then I discovered dubstep.

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and Skrillex, Vigil Riot and when I was 13 maybe.

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Yeah, and I really started to get the power that music can have and I started producing on

my own because I really wanted to know how it's done.

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Yeah, so I started producing my own music when I was, I don't know, 13 maybe 14 with FH

Studio back then.

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And yeah, then I came to my limits because I didn't know much about harmony and theory and

I wanted to do more and more complex harmony and wanted to learn about it.

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So I started playing piano again, but this time I improvised on my own and just figured

stuff out on my own and

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This was way much more fun than the classical piano lessons I had.

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So yeah, I learned lot by myself back then and always implemented what I learned into my

electronic music.

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And then I discovered jazz music, is basically like, so the theory is like harmony, melody

and rhythm all packed together in...

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in so-called jazz music and it looked like the perfect music to dive into, to learn

everything about harmony and stuff like that.

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And that's when I started going towards jazz music and I got a nice teacher, Klaus

Ignazek, who...

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taught me a lot about jazz and then he told me that maybe I should apply to actually study

it at a university and then yeah, I went to Munich and got accepted there and studied

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there for five years.

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And now I'm in Berlin studying here my master, also in jazz piano.

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But in the last time I really learned about myself that I'm not a jazz pianist.

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I just like music in general, I don't want to only play jazz.

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yeah.

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And the electronic music always went with me the long way.

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And so everything mixes together, jazz and dubstep, electronics and processing and

technology.

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It's all together for me.

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Yeah, I think that's kind of how I got here.

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Yeah.

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How do you feel about the term jazz?

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What does jazz mean to you?

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Nothing actually.

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I don't know what it means.

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I can't really identify with the term jazz and I don't really know what it is and what

it's supposed to mean.

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for me it's a very abstract word.

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I like to just call it music.

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Because for me classical music and jazz is not far away from each other.

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And dubstep and classical music.

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isn't either.

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It's just all emotions that are produced through vibrating the air actually.

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So it's super basic and music is music and doesn't need any genres or any labels, I think.

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But still, when you write your press release, you have to define it in some way, you know?

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Yeah, that's the hard part to describe your own music and explain what it is and you don't

even know yourself what it is.

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Yeah, for sure.

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But it probably has something to do with experimenting, improvisation, spontaneity or

something like that, But so you went from a classical pianist, you kind of hated the

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structure and practicing and stuff like that.

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And then you started developing your own voice through electronic music producing.

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You felt the need to...

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to open up more doors harmonically, rhythmically, and then you started delving into jazz

piano.

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And now you've studied for a long time, still studying and implementing electronic

influences from dubstep and making your own music.

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And as I mentioned in the intro, you got third place in an AI jazz music competition.

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Yes.

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And music competitions are, it's a fascinating thing in itself.

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I mean, how do you evaluate who is the winner?

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Can music be a winner?

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Because it's different from sports, you know?

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And particularly an AI Jazz Award, seems really difficult to assess.

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So what were the assessment criteria for that competition?

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Do you remember?

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I don't know actually.

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I think you were supposed to send in like a five minute piece or something.

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And I sent in like a half an hour piece I just finished.

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So I don't know.

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I'm really new to competitions and I don't really get the point of them, especially in

music.

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Like you said, it's not a sport, you can't.

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Yeah, you can't say which music is better than the other one.

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Makes no sense.

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Yeah, guess it's just a format that's fitting to the public.

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So that's the positive part.

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And you could possibly make some money from it as well if you win.

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I guess, yeah.

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some money and can spend it more on yourself and get more gear or more stuff.

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That's the one good thing about competitions.

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Everything else, in my opinion, is shit.

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And it was supposed to be a five minute submission and you made a one and a half hour

submission So maybe that's why you got third place not first place.

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Kind of missed the mark on that one But the reason I got across your name was because I

was reading about artists on the newotone website, which is an AI plugin So I'm a bit

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curious on how you started

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experimenting with AI plugins and what your work with Neotone has been.

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So I have a friend who lives in Munich who's a great producer and singer called Enik.

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E-N-Y-K.

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And he told me about, you have to check this out, this new tone, it's amazing plug-in and

it's so weird and you get so many these artifacts and you have to check it out.

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So I downloaded it and checked it out and I was like super...

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Because I expected like an AI plugin that works perfectly, 90 % perfectly.

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That you can just say, I don't know, just give it some input, like your voice and tell it,

yeah, okay, now do an orchestra out of it.

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And it does just like, it just does that, but it's not 90 % perfect.

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It's more like...

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20 % perfect.

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So you get like all these artifacts and you kind of hear that it really wants to be an

orchestra.

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But you also hear like the input you gave it, so your voice.

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And it just has this magical, I don't know, like glitchy, glitchiness.

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And you can hear that the machine is trying to do something like humanly.

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I don't know, it's super weird.

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But yeah, that's when I got to use Neutron and implement it in my work.

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So you get to listen to the machine struggling to be human and that's interesting for you.

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love it.

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In some ways music is often a language describing human struggle and art in general is

often depicting human struggle.

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So that's interesting that you now make art which is about a machine struggling to be

human.

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Yeah, and you're the human that tells the machine to struggle like a human.

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It's like super, like a little feedback loop.

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It's weird.

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So what is human?

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What is machine?

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Or I don't know, it's, it's, or is it all the same actually?

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I don't know, but it has some, some, some magic in it.

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But then you've used this tool to make some music with and I think we should listen to

some of that music now.

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Let's listen to the one on YouTube, Anna Moja, is that it?

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And before we listen to it maybe you could explain the concept or...

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or explaining what's going on.

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Sure, so this is an unreleased track, will come out, I don't know, I'm waiting for a remix

of a friend and it will come out in a few months I think.

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It is with my alias, Byfa, so it's like electronic club music more.

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And it's the first track that I made in Berlin, so it's super, super fresh because I just

moved here.

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And there's like one part that's using Neutone, the AI plugin.

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It's where I don't really like my voice.

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And I don't like lyrics that I write.

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But I really wanted to give this passage like a really human touch, like my own voice.

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But yeah, I don't like it.

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So I run it through Neutone.

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And what I did is I sang into my phone, like just little melody snippets and I sent this

to Neutone and I told the plugin to do a voice out of it.

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the input is my voice and the output is like a voice model from Neutone.

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I think it's super interesting because you can actually hear my voice but it's super

artifacted and glitched out but it kind of, I don't know, it sounds like me but it doesn't

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sound like me on the other side.

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But for me it's like a super good way to, yeah, actually to hide my own voice and to

create some artificial thing out of human.

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voice actually.

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Okay, so, since this is on YouTube I'll try to share screen and audio.

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Let's see if this works.

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Can hear that?

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Great.

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So maybe I'll fast forward to the bit where you actually use your phone.

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Damn.

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It's like there, right there.

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Yeah.

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Alright, I'll show more of the song in the actual episode.

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I'll just exchange the audio with the actual audio.

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So what we just listened to there was a new tone struggling with your voice, I guess.

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Yeah, and I forgot to tell it's actually auto-tuned.

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So I sang super weird melody snippets, auto-tuned them, put those auto-tuned voices in

noitone, auto-tuned them again, and then you get something like that.

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Okay.

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And then it's kind of a club beat with some weird sounding almost microtonal textures on

top.

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Yeah, right.

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which sounds really outlandish and weird but also a banging groove, you know?

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Hahaha

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Would you do any of this stuff live?

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Because in this video you're using your phone, but it's pre-recorded.

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Is there any use case for this live or is this just a production thing?

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No, you can use it live.

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When I played...

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Do you mean the Neutone especially?

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Yeah, you can do it live.

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It has a lot of latency.

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Actually, I'm in touch with the Neutone guys who are developing it and doing my own models

soon.

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And when I played at Elb Jazz for the Jazz KE competition, I wrote them like...

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Guys, I really need like a version that has lower latency because I can't play with like

500 milliseconds delay.

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And then we got something, some tricks to get the latency lower, but you can use it live.

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Yeah, okay.

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So, that was Newtone.

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What other stuff are you using when you make music these days?

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So I always try to find new stuff that inspires me like new tone.

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And lately I started experimenting with, so I'm using Ableton Live now.

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I started with using the Ableton's feature called Audio to MIDI Converter.

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So if you have Ableton, you have just a...

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audio file you can right click on it and say generate me a midi track out of it.

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It's kind of has the same feeling like the Neutone because it's you get like super weird

midi files that I personally I love them and I tried to trick the algorithm so the

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algorithms I think

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how it works, I don't know.

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I think it just checks like the fundamentals of the audio input and just puts them into

the MIDI notes.

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But if you have like a lot of overtones, then you can trick the system to think that's a

fundamental, not an overtone.

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So you get like super weirdly MIDI files with some weird overtones that are actually

fundamentals in your MIDI file.

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And you can trick the program by adding lot of distortion maybe to audio signal to get

more overtones so you get a weirder midi file and what I do is usually to take this and

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let so take the midi files and let some strings play it and you get like the super

avant-garde voicings super dense midi strings

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But I think they sound amazing.

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That's a lot what I did with Erden.

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This is lot of strings generated with that.

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Cool, let's listen to that as well.

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Yeah, sure.

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That's, let's see, is that on YouTube?

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Actually, I don't know.

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Let me check.

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Did you send me a link to that maybe?

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I sent you link but I think it's Bandcamp.

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Yeah, yeah, there it is.

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I found it.

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Nice.

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Let's see, then I can share the screen again.

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Maybe I can tell you the right timestamp.

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Yeah, that will be awesome as well.

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Yeah, like four minutes into the first part is a good example.

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Okay.

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Okay, so what was the origin of the strings before converting to MIDI, do remember?

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Let me think...

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I think it was just piano, yeah I think it was a piano.

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Then I converted it to MIDI and I think actually I...

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that I then put it through Neutone.

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So piano goes into MIDI and the MIDI is played by strings and the strings get into Neutone

strings actually.

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And then I recorded the output of Neutone and I think I did this like four times or five

times.

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So in the end you have something very abstract but it has still the same origin, the

piano.

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But yeah, I like to do like multiple times to get even further away from the origins.

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Is it from a new tone that the glitchiness comes from?

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Or was it a different layer?

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I think it's a mixture.

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there's this one reverb in Ableton called hybrid reverb and it has this little I don't

know what it's called.

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You can switch it onto analog mode and extreme analog so it has like a lot of glitches.

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And if you modulate this slider super fast and you get a lot of glitches because the

reverb just does

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random shit.

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So this is one layer.

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The other layer is Neutone.

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And I think the third layer is just Neutone again, but doing something different.

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So it's not, I think I tried to think like an orchestra so that not that I have like a lot

of single MIDI files only playing one note.

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instead of having one midi file with all the notes in it.

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So I give every instrument its own voice and its own processing so you get a super dense

sound and it's not all from the same midi source.

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Okay, awesome.

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Let's check out another track, this one from your trio, Endern, the tune Endling.

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Yeah.

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We can just listen to it first and then you can say what's going on afterwards maybe.

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Of course commercial because I'm using Chrome.

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Okay.

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I'll just have to endure

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yeah, that's some crazy stuff right there.

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So what it sounds like to me is a dope drum groove, which is a bit distorted and then a

melody on top which is played in unison with piano and saxophone, which is incredibly

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complicated and sort of in and out of different tonalities.

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Could you explain how this tune was made?

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Sure, so our drummer, Sebi Wolfgrube, he sent us, sent Moots and me some drum stems he

just recorded and then I processed them a little bit, that they hit a little bit more but

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back then they were not like that distorted, it was just like so we can work with it.

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So is that a dubstep guy inside of you that wants you to hit harder and so you process it

kind of?

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Yeah, probably.

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I always want the drums to hit hard.

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I don't know.

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Yeah, I just like it.

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And distortion, especially, I really love distortion on everything.

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So that's just, I guess my dubstep passed telling me to do that.

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And then we...

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I improvised like the sort of melody that is played in unison was improvised by me.

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And then the hard part was to transcribe it and then play the saxophone part on top.

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So Moritz did it like super great and we were in the studio and he was trying all the

phrases and it was like super out and was super complicated.

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But in the end we got it.

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And we wanted to cut as less as possible so it really has like the flow and the character

as if it's being played live.

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So we really had to transcribe it pretty detailed, detailedly.

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Yeah, and then I wanted...

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melody, was it like one take improvisation or did you comp takes or do you remember how it

went down?

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No, it was the one take I think.

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was just the...

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Usually for me it's like the first takes or the first take is the best one most of the

time.

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And I just took it, yeah.

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I didn't rethink it twice.

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cool but then the melody kind of develops and the orchestration develops through the tune

as well.

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What's going on there?

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so we did the melody part and then we needed like a chorus actually, like a B part.

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So this is when the synth chords come in and it gets a little wider and more dense.

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And after this part it takes you to the solo part and it gets much worse.

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It's super dense and super microtonal.

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It was actually a one take two, think, with my...

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I played on my Prophet Rev 2.

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And on the synthesizer you have like the little knob called oscillator slop.

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And it just determines that when you press a key it's not always in tune.

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And you can say how much it isn't in tune.

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And I really like to play with that so that you don't really know which notes I'm playing

actually.

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Yeah, and then I improvised the solo over it.

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There's actually some Neutron in there, because I really love soprano saxophone and

saxophone, tenor saxophone, and I wanted it to have like the...

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Sorry, I love John Coltrane.

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I wanted it to have like the intensity from a 60s Coltrane album.

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So I put some Neutron on there and telling it to accompany my solo with soprano saxophone

and then I cut out some soprano lines but I don't think you can really hear them but in my

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solo there's a soprano playing with me.

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Fake soprano.

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Yeah, right.

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your solo.

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Yeah, okay.

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And then we have some strings in my solo.

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This is the same procedure as I told before, just audio to MIDI.

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And after that, yeah, there's like the super...

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I love this part where Moritz, the saxophone player, is basically destroying the whole

song in the end and it gets so intense and he's just screaming.

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and it has like the super density and the flow is gone from the drums so it's a super

different vibe then, super dark and everything's coming to an end.

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Yeah, I really loved this song.

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That's intense that part when it's like just screaming basically

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And he's not stopping.

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It's just one more and one more and the bass notes are cutting out and the reverb is

slowly getting faded out.

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So it's super uncomfortable actually to, for me, it's super uncomfortable to listen to it.

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But I love it.

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I guess that's because I read the description of your trio and I think in the end it says

something about protest.

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Progress and protest.

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I guess it sounds a bit protest-y if that's even a word.

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Screaming through the saxophone just like incessantly.

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Yeah.

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That's super cool.

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Yes, that's an interesting tune and how have you played that song live yet?

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Not yet and I don't know if we can, I think of course we can but we would have to practice

a lot more than and I moved to Berlin and they are still in Munich so I don't know if it's

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going to happen but yeah hopefully sometime yeah.

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Yeah, you have to practice that head a bit, Have you written a lead sheet for this song?

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Have you written down the melody?

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Yeah.

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have it because we needed the melody from Moritz to play and in the beginning we didn't so

when we only had the drum stems from Sebi, Moritz and I heard it differently.

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We hit a different pulse so we transcribed it actually like every bar and it's just

changing 7, 8 and 7, 4 and 6 and I don't know it's like going through all

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all different kind of metrics.

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So in the end, yeah, I think we have a pretty good sheet from it.

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Alright, so you can just bring the lead sheet to a jam in Berlin and get on it.

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That would be funny.

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So, you're obviously kind of delving in the AI music space.

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What kind of stuff do you find most interesting right now when you look around in the

scene?

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What fascinates you about what other people are doing?

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Regarding AI?

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A lot, so yeah.

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And maybe also what's not interesting, that's also...

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Yeah, maybe that's more easy to say.

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So what's definitely not interesting for me is like those platforms like Suno or Udio, AI,

the prompts to music networks because I don't see the value of it.

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And I think it's super boring to just, yeah, just do some prompts and get...

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music out of it.

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I mean it's it's impressing but I don't get the why you would do it because doing music is

not about the end product like with with those websites so doing music is yeah the the

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doing of it the creating is the is the fun part not the the end product it's just the

experimenting

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That's because I don't really like those websites.

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And what I really think is super interesting is something like Neutone, where you can

shift your timbres of your instruments.

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Doing this live actually is super interesting, I think.

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And there are some...

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I don't know, did you check out the other Neutone artists?

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There's like the Portray XO, it's like super great project.

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She's also in Berlin.

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I think it's just super interesting what she's doing with AI.

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So she really goes deep into it and is really into it.

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I really like it and she's getting super interesting music out of it.

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cool.

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it's stuff that's pushing the boundaries of what's possible and not replicating a generic

version of what's already done, I guess.

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Yesterday I was just browsing the top videos on Sora, the new text to video machine from

OpenAI, where you can make a text prompt and get a five second video.

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And what's fascinating about that, I think, is that it kind of taps into imagination in a

way that is new.

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For instance, I saw a video of a dough, like as you use for making bread, know, that was

kneading itself, like that, which I thought was funny.

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I saw a...

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a piece of sushi where the rice inside of the sushi stood up and started dancing and using

the salmon sushi as a hat.

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And I think those kind of use cases for AI is really fascinating and funny and taps into

imagination in a new way.

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But I mean, so I'm still kind of waiting for a similar kind in music.

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Seems like the stuff Google

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is doing with the FX lab is kind of similar but that's not available in EU yet so I

haven't tried it myself or just saw it on video but I mean things things that are pushing

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us forward and and bringing something new that's what's interesting and cool I guess

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But in terms of doing jazz music and doing improvisation, you obviously have spent a lot

of time on your craft as well, playing piano, being able to hear a phrase in your head and

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actually being able to play it.

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And of course, in jazz, it's really important to be a good listener, react to what the

other people in the band are doing and stuff that gets in the way of finger...

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fingertip craftsmanship is kind of annoying in terms of being able to respond in the way

that you'd like.

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As you were mentioning earlier also with the new Neutron that it has a had a 500

millisecond delay and that makes it really difficult to respond to stuff happening in real

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time.

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So I mean

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With that in mind, the start-

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does that steer any direction for you in terms of what you're interested in what you're

not interested in when it comes to plugins

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Like latency.

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latency or just the fact that you want to...

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I'm not sure if that's the case for you of course but at least for me I want to know

what's happening when I do stuff like when I play the guitar which is my instrument when I

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hit a note I want to know what that note is going to sound like and of course it's

sometimes it's great to be surprised or experiment and stuff but when it comes to

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camping someone or playing in an interplay setting.

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I want to compliment what other people are doing and that's really difficult if I'm not

sure what's going to happen.

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Sure, yeah.

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think so.

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I try to...

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everything I'm doing I always have in mind.

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Okay, I want to do it live and do it on the stage and check it out how it sounds like on a

big speakers and in the club.

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don't know.

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So I think for me, I don't have a lot of plugins, but the plugins I have, I really know

what they are doing.

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And I know which ones I can use live and for me every plugin is like a own instrument that

you have to learn.

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And I really like to modulate all kind of stuff.

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If I play synthesizer for example, I like to do like super slightly, super small changes

to every note so it sounds super organic and alive.

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And I always try to do this live as well so that everything I do really sounds like a real

instrument and not like a gimmick because for me at least synthesizers can super easily

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sound super thin and like a gimmick and not like a real instrument.

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And for me playing jazz music live, it's super important that if I play synthesizer live,

I really need it to be organic.

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Otherwise it's...

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super stiff and like you said like to play with other people you can't interact with them

if you if your synthesizer is only having one velocity or only one that the filter is

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always on the same on the same frequency yeah so it's always yeah learning how to play

everything live and in the moment and to to yeah to do it

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with your band so that you have all possibilities.

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Yeah, and not to overwhelm yourself with options, I guess, as you were saying that you

have a few tools and you know those tools very well so that they become your instrument.

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Also, when talking about playing live and improvising and particularly in a jazz setting,

that's a really important...

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part of the scene and of the culture in jazz, that improvisation and interacting and being

in the moment is a part of it.

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Which also brings into the question the topic of authenticity and like jazz creds, I guess

you could say.

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How do you feel your peers in the jazz community?

372

How do they respond to AI and using AI tools?

373

Do feel like policed by jazz creds gatekeepers?

374

Sure, yeah.

375

think so there are like the really old school jazz players, you can't talk, at least the

ones I know, you can't talk with them about AI or stuff like that.

376

They're always like, okay, this is shit and only like the jazz music from the 30s to 60s.

377

This is only the, this is it.

378

There's nothing better.

379

And this is the only music they are playing and listening to and like super tunnel

visioned.

380

But at least in Germany, think this is the minority actually.

381

So there are lot more musicians that are super open to experimenting and to new stuff.

382

Yeah, okay.

383

That's good, guess.

384

At least for you.

385

I mean, Berlin kind of has that reputation to be open and experimental and having a large

scene for avant-garde music.

386

And I guess AI has been adopted as a part of the avant-garde scene.

387

Going back a bit to your upbringing.

388

I mean, you went from being a classical pianist and then making electronic music and then

found out you had to expand your vocabulary and then went into jazz.

389

If you were a teenager today and you were exposed to those kinds of AI tools that are

available now, do think you would have done anything different?

390

Wow, that's good question.

391

I don't know.

392

Probably, probably not.

393

I think I'm always, so I don't really, I can't focus on one thing for long time, so I

always need something new.

394

So I don't think that if I was a teenager and I found AI tools, I don't.

395

Maybe I would do it for like a month and would be like super passionate about it.

396

But after a month, then I would search something else and find something else to do.

397

So it's, yeah, I'm super fast changing.

398

Okay, but yeah, you have to have some patience to learn to play the piano as well as you

do to get that technical prowess.

399

You have had to spend some hours practicing.

400

Yeah, but I'm not a good at practicing actually.

401

I think for the last two years I didn't practice at all.

402

When I studied in Munich I practiced a lot and then kind of got bored of it and then

started again with doing some...

403

Ableton stuff and electronic music, some more electronic music.

404

And it always switches.

405

And maybe next week I'm playing, I don't know, 10 hours a day piano.

406

I don't know, it's just, I can't really control it.

407

But it's super exhausting actually because I know, okay, I am a piano player, so I have it

in my head.

408

that's like a little voice that always screams at me that I have to practice because if I

don't practice I'm not worth anything.

409

But yeah, it's yeah probably but I try to take it not that serious and like I said music

is should be fun and I really don't want to go into the

410

into the mindset of saying, okay, you have to practice four hours every day to get good at

your instrument.

411

I don't think that this is actually true.

412

It's more like having fun and just exploring and trying stuff out, especially when you're

playing live and being not afraid to make mistakes.

413

I think like that you learn a lot more than practicing alone for four hours in a dark

room.

414

Yeah, but you do play a lot then, maybe not practice as much.

415

Yeah, I like to play a lot, yeah, but don't practice.

416

I practice a lot in my head, though.

417

I like to, yeah, I always have the keyboard in my head and I always check out lines or

some interesting structures.

418

I do this a lot, but I don't actually go to the piano and learn it in all 12 keys and,

yeah.

419

There are loads of studies though that show that mental practice is just as good as

physical practice.

420

I heard an interview also with Tal Wilkenfeld.

421

I don't know if you know her, the female bass player who played with Jeff Beck in Vinca

Luta and stuff like that.

422

When she was growing up she wasn't allowed to practice more than the maximum 30 minutes a

day by her parents.

423

Because they wanted her to focus on school and stuff like that so then she would just

practice mentally and Prepare prepare self all day for those 30 minutes of golden time

424

with the instrument You know and she got got to a place of true virtuosity, you know And

I've also seen studies where they actually compare 30 minutes of actual playing with 30

425

minutes of mental practice

426

Mm-hmm.

427

the results are the same or better from mental practice actually.

428

But it's really difficult for many people to keep focus when you mentally practice, you

know.

429

If you have ever tried meditation as well, it's a really difficult task to do.

430

I guess if you have the ability to actually mentally focus enough to mentally practice,

that's probably...

431

a very good thing to do.

432

So maybe that's why you've gotten to the level you've gotten to without practicing that

much on the physical instrument if you're constantly doing it in your mind.

433

We're starting to get to a close there Sebastian, but before we end I was wondering if you

have any recommendations for

434

for listening when it comes to artists or plugins that we should check out in the music

and AI space.

435

So yeah, yep, portrait XO or project.

436

Wait, let me check it.

437

Yeah, PortrayxO.

438

She's a great Berlin-based musician.

439

And there is one called Marius Jopen.

440

He's not a musician, but he's doing AI art.

441

That's super nice.

442

And he did the artwork for my album, for my Beifer album.

443

And I don't know if know Refik Anadol.

444

Are they f***?

445

No.

446

it's actually the first artist I discovered who's doing something with AI.

447

And yeah, he's a great artist doing super weird but beautiful installations with, I don't

know, it's super big screens doing weird animated stuff.

448

It's amazing.

449

Yeah.

450

Maybe do a three.

451

Yeah, cool.

452

And as an outro for this episode, was thinking about playing a song from Endern, which is

called Latif's Lament, which you have also played live, or this is a live recording

453

actually.

454

So I'll post a link to that in the post.

455

But maybe you could explain a bit what's going on in that song before we listen to it.

456

This one came out of a jam where I experimented with the crashbecken.

457

I had a contact microphone, I stuck it onto the crashbecken and I soldered myself a little

speaker that I can have in my hand.

458

The signal that comes into the microphone is the same signal that goes out of the speaker.

459

So if I touch the crashback with my speaker, it creates a feedback.

460

And I really love feedbacks, like guitar feedbacks.

461

And I really wanted to do it on my own.

462

And that's the best way for me to get super interesting feedbacks and to actually control

them live.

463

So this is the main...

464

thing that inspired this song I think and then it's just so this the song doesn't really

have a metric it just has a pulse and that you can stretch and that you can feel on

465

different ways so it's super heavily based on interplay especially with me and the drummer

because

466

The pulse is always set by the synthesizer playing a super distorted, noisy bass tone.

467

Just like the pulse and it's just, everything's played freely.

468

And the melody actually is from a book from Youssef Latif.

469

Do you know him?

470

It's like super...

471

There's a so it's a big, fat book with a lot of melodic phrases and stuff to, to

exercises, stuff to practice.

472

And when we had this jam session and we played like super noisy and I played the fat bass

notes, Moritz just opened this book and just played the first passage that was on the side

473

that he opened.

474

Yeah, and then there was this melody and it has a structure in it.

475

I think it's always a perfect fourth and then a tritone and then the perfect fourth and a

tritone again.

476

I think this is the structure.

477

And then he just improvises on it.

478

And the name Latif Slaman is Youssef Latif.

479

That's why it's called like that.

480

Yeah.

481

nice, great.

482

So thank you so much for coming.

483

Yeah, thank you for having me.

484

Now, the thief's lament.

485

Yeah.

486

Okay, there's a little hit the stop button.

487

Yeah.