the first convincing Grimes AI song is here and it’s a banger

If that insane AISIS album wasn't enough to convince you that we're on the verge of reaching the musical Singularity, check this out: LA-based electronic pop artist, producer, and accomplished composer for TV + film Lauren Culjak aka Kotomi has created an uncanny Grimes replicant/banger using Grimes' newly unveiled GrimesAI-1 Voiceprint, which aims to be "the best self-replicating pop star voice on the market". Culjak tells us that as soon as she saw Grimes was inviting people to make music with her A.I. voice, she felt "an urgent desire to write the collab with her that I'd always wanted to do." Culjak adds, "After a little practice with her voice generator (at elf.tech) I started to get the hang of how to play around vocally with parts that would sound like her. The tool is incredibly realistic when handled well! I love that she is welcoming this kind of experimentation, and I hope she likes the song :) I'm usually a little too precious about the songs I make, and it felt good to write and produce something in three days and throw it out into the wild."

Grimes herself said recently, "Grimes is now open source and self-replicating", and while "In Another Life" on its own only scratches the surface of that conceit, hearing an artist as adept and talented as Kotomi wield this kind of tech feels like a thrilling and slightly unsettling glimpse into pop music's wild future. Featuring a vibrant GrimesAI who seems to inhabit a liminal space between the Halfaxa and Visions eras, it's not the first AI Grimes track to surface (this one is cool and very weird, it's just a little...nightmarish?), but it is the best, and while not entirely indistinguishable from IRL Grimes, it's certainly the most convincing. Listen below:

[artwork by Kotomi using Midjourney]