Here’s what’s in store and tickets are available.

UPDATE: Here’s the Github Repo w/ Slides: https://github.com/therewasaguy/p5-music-viz

So if I’m not careful, I will become a caricature of myself.

For now, I think, I’m a blank slate.

And yet, even before I had finished typing a single word into my new phone, QuickType was already trying to put words in my virtual mouth.

Where does QuickType get its initial corpus? From people’s texts, I assumed. But Apple’s privacy policy states that my corpus will remain private. So maybe it is a more generic source. Was it the Cambridge English Corpus? No, too formal. The Enron Email Corpus?

Maybe it’s based on everything that Apple already knows about me from whatever corpus they already have of my text.

I want to write more this year. I enjoy writing. I thought I might be an English major in college. The compositional process helps me get to the bottom of my thoughts, and express my ideas to the world.

What happens when we hand over part of this process to predictive text analysis—a machine’s interpretation of our voice?

I’m about to find out. But for now, I like to imagine that QuickType’s initial corpus based on some authoritative analysis of SMS etiquette. Imagine what a great resource that would be: take a snapshot of contemporary text-based communication, and return the lowest common denominator.

Here are some examples from my initial exploration of an untrained QuickType:

I’m so excited for this year and I don’t know how much I love it when people don’t like the new version of this year and the rest of the day before the end of the year before the update is a very nice but it would mean the world is not the same thing over and over again

Sorry, no matter what you think you should have been the same thing as the most recent update it crashes and freezes and crashes and freezes up on me and I don’t think that it was the first time since the update it crashes every time we talk about it and it will not let me know what to say it is not the same thing as the first time since it is not the same thing as the first time since the update

Ok so I can see it as a result of the best thing ever is when I get to see the same thing as the most recent update has been the most beautiful girl in the morning and I’m not going to the gym and then you can get it together and make me laugh so hard for you guys should have been the same thing as the most beautiful girl in the world is full of it

I’m not sure what the heck is going on with my friends and I don’t know what to say I don’t think I might be the same thing as the first time I see you

I don’t know if 2014 was a good year for music. But it was a great year to be a music listener. Most of these releases are at your fingertips on various websites where they can also be purchased in physical formats.

7 FAVORITES

The Shivvers – The Shivvers (Sing Sing Records) – originally recorded in 1980, never released!

Satanicpornocultshop – AtoZ!!!2 (nunulaxnulan)

Francis Bebey – Psychedelic Sanza 1982-1984 (Born Bad)

The Moles – Flashbacks and Dream Sequences: The Story of the Moles (Fire Records)

Container – Adhesive EP (Liberation Technologies)

Ben Vida – Slipping Control (Shelter Press)

Karol Conka – Batuk Freak (Mr Bongo)

17 MORE

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat – Party Jail (Infinity Cat)
Ben Frost – A U R O R A (Mute / Bedroom Community)
The Soundcarriers – Entropicalia (Ghost Box)
Family Fodder – Monkey Banana Kitchen (Staubgold) (Reissue)
The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band – 21st Century Molam (Studio Lam )
Kemialliset Ystävät – Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa (Dekorder)
Goat – Commune (Sub Pop)
V/A – Warfaring Strangers: Darkscortch Canticles (Numero Group)
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata / Piñata Beats (Madlib Invazion)
Cabaret Voltaire – #7885 Electropunk to Technopop 1978-1985 (Mute)
Doug Gillard – Parade On (Nine Mile Records)
V/A – Serious Rockers: An Unblinking Ear Mixtape (Unblinking Ear) (*I’m biased!)
electric eels – Die Electric Eels (Superior Viaduct)
Pregnant – John Raw (Crash Symbols)
Traxman – Da Mind of Traxman 2 (Planet Mu)
OOIOO – Gamel (Thrill Jockey)

Sheer Mag 7” (Wilsuns RC)

ALSO ENJOYED

Timmy Vulgar – Genetic Armageddon (American Tapes)
Shabazz Palaces – Lese Majesty (Sub Pop)
Xray Pop – Ding Dong Songs (Cache Cache / Finders Keepers)
The Stevens – A History of Hygiene (Chapter Music)
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete – Chambers (Captcha)
Ex Hex – Rips (Merge)
Ought – More Than Any Other Day (Constellation)
Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire For No Witness (Jagjaguwar)
Khun Narin – Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band (Innovative Leisure)
Angkanang Kunchai with Ubon-Pattana Band – Isan Lam Plearn (EM Records)
Machinedrum – Vapor City Archives (Ninja Tune)
Caetano Veloso – Abraçaço (Nonesuch)
Todd Terje – It’s Album Time (Olsen Records)
The Paperhead – Africa Avenue (Trouble In Mind)
Life Without Buildings – Any Other City (What’s Your Rupture)
The War On Drugs – Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian)
Caribou – Our Love (Merge)
Inga Copeland – Because I’m Worth It (self release)
Brian Eno & Karl Hyde – High Life (Warp)
Godflesh – Decline and Fall EP (Avalanche Recordings)
Chancha Via Circuito – Amansara (Wonderwheel Recordings)
Clark – Clark (Warp)
FKA twigs – LP1 (Young Turks)
Ariel Pink – Pom Pom (4AD)
Gipsy Rhumba: The Original Rhythm of Gipsy Rhumba in Spain 1965-74 (Soul Jazz)
Nevermores – Lock Your Doors… (Magnetic South)
Apache Dropout “Heavy Window” (Magnetic South)
Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit (Harbinger Sound)
Ninos Du Brasil – Novos Mistérios (Hospital Productions)
V/A – Sawtuha: Nine Women From Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and a bonus song from Syria (Jakarta)
Quantic – Magnetica (Tru Thoughts)
Stas – Tales From Liasufam Desert (Babylon Records)
Beatelephant – Beatelephant (bandcamp)
V/A – Beyond Addis: Contemporary Jazz & Funk Inspired By Ethiopian Sounds from the 70’s (Trikont)
X_X – X Sticky Fingers X (Smog Veil)

MISSED / NEED TO HEAR MORE

Swans – To Be Kind
Aphex Twin – Syro
Total Control – Typical System
Andy Stott – Faith In Strangers
Mordecai – Neil’s Generator
Ngozi Family – Day of Judgement
Burnt Skull – Sewer Birth
Hank Wood and the Hammerheads – Stay Home!!