Notes From A Quiet Life

You don’t have to go far on the internet to read or hear what people think about the developments in artificial intelligence. The fact that those developments are loathed by so many (I have mixed feelings myself) makes promoting your new album with a video made using OpenAI’s Sora almost a risky move. Nonetheless, that is what Ernest Greene, the man behind Washed Out, is doing for the upcoming Notes From A Quiet Life.

The video for the first track on the album to be released, “The Hardest Part” has the sort of technological surrealism you would export from a concept executed with a still wet around the ears AI tool. Its speed run through a computer-generated universe suits the track, though.

In a mini-documentary to coincide with the release of the new album, Greene takes the viewer on a pastoral tour of his farm in rural Georgia and discusses topics such as visual art (particularly sculpture), family and health.

In the upcoming deadbeat summer, I am planning to see not only Washed Out, but also another survivor of the 2010 chillwave explosion — Small Black. These groups are still going strong, both refining their sound and taking it in new directions.