the hypermodern and the homegrown
personal process in the age of creative abundance
I've been reflecting lately on how rapidly artificial intelligence is reshaping creative processes, particularly in music. It's become increasingly common for people—myself included—to rely on AI-driven tools to assist or even entirely generate musical ideas.
You can find my rather optimistic take on this here.
Recently, I sat down to experiment with Suno, an AI music platform designed to effortlessly produce full tracks in almost any imaginable style or genre directly from natural language prompts. So, you just write something like, "dark pop song with female vocals, atmospheric synth pads, and lyrics about death and euphoria," and Suno quickly delivers a handful of polished, perfectly on-trend tracks that are technically to spec. Yet, as I listened back, I felt an unsettling emptiness. The tracks sounded well-produced, I guess, but emotionally sterile—like something carefully made to replicate popular hits without any genuine creative impulse. It was like listening to a Eurovision contestant imitating The Weeknd, or an alien doing Sia Karaoke.
The existence of Suno points clearly toward where music culture is headed: a future where the roles of listener and producer become increasingly suffused. People will soon effortlessly create music tailored exactly to their listening enjoyment based on their exact mood or situation.
"Make me a beat engineered for focus to help me study," or "make the text of this Allison Roman recipe into a song in the style of Taylor Swift."
That instantaneous fulfillment of their creative consumer impulses will likely outweigh concerns about the quality of the music created. Soon, a teenager might become famous because they wondered what it would be like if Joni Mitchell had a song featuring Yung Lean, or some other harebrained—yet admittedly compelling—mash-up. Advancements in AI generation, stem sampling, and deepfake technology are pushing us toward this kind of musical environment—one in which novelty, immediacy, and absurd pastiche overshadow artistry and intentionality.
I have a reasonably expanded view on what qualifies as artistic intent, and I believe there’s value in using mechanization, randomness, automation and chance to enhance the creative experience. After all, everything comes from somewhere. But the difference between products like Suno, and the outcome is generated, rather than an element of the process. I am convinced that creative activity is good for the brain, and that there is more to creativity than simply prompting an AI agen with natural language. At least I hope so. Even if technology is revolutionizing and democratizing musical proficiency, which I believe it is, there must still be something to be said for process and personal significance.
As these automated processes become pervasive, I'm increasingly drawn to the arbitrary yet irreplaceably human specificity inherent in real creative acts. While AI can expertly imitate style and form, it inherently lacks lived experience—the ineffable quality that gives personal significance and genuine depth to creative work.
These reflections inspired my latest project, Mudchute Tape, an intentionally modest EP grounded entirely in a mundane yet meaningful personal experience. The project emerged from a walk I took through Mudchute Park in London, accompanying a friend and their classmates from the Goldsmiths MFA program. Initially assigned to create a collaborative artwork, they deliberately opted against producing anything tangible. Instead, they chose simply to walk, talk, and inhabit space together—an act reminiscent of the Situationists' explorations of urban space and psychogeography, or an echo of mid-20th-century 'happenings,' where the emphasis was placed on direct, embodied experiences rather than consumable outcomes. I tagged along and captured some audio in Voice Notes.
Mudchute Park itself offers a fascinating geographical and cultural juxtaposition. Located in East London, the park provides a serene, bucolic environment characterized by open green spaces, wildlife, and a working farm. Yet, its tranquil simplicity feels strangely authorized and legitimated by its proximity to the hypermodern, gleaming financial center of Canary Wharf. Standing in Mudchute, feeding a squirrel or finding the intense eye contact of a llama, one can't help but notice the backdrop of skyscrapers evoking futuristic cityscapes like Dubai. This visual contrast seems emblematic of our contemporary moment—nature quietly endorsed by capital's towering symbols, authenticity existing in uneasy partnership with hypermodernity.
Inspired by the anti-productive ethos of my friend and their schoolmates, I made field recordings during our walk. These recordings form the sonic backbone of Mudchute Tape, capturing the subtle textures of casual conversation, footsteps, ambient noises, and spontaneous laughter. Rather than leveraging every modern digital tool at my disposal to manufacture a polished, algorithm-friendly track, I chose to preserve these authentic, unrefined audio fragments precisely because they hold personal specificity.
Musically, the EP further explores this juxtaposition. Hyperprocessed UK garage rhythms and rave-inflected vocal samples are overlaid with pastoral textures—leaf murmurings, bird calls, footsteps—creating a sonic landscape that situates itself deliberately between the hypermodern and the homegrown, technological precision and organic ambience. It mirrors Mudchute Park’s own coexistence of natural tranquility with urban modernity, embracing complexity over polished simplification.
This music isn't designed to chase algorithms or secure placement on editorial playlists (those are all but extinct anyway, thanks to advancements in AI curation). Instead, it's a modest register of genuine experience, embracing creative limitations as a meaningful artistic choice. I'm also intentionally releasing this project under my own name rather than the Crystal Box moniker, because I'm increasingly feeling constrained by the limitations of a singular artistic identity. My interests—experimental pop, club music, modern composition, deejaying, sound art—are broad and varied. Using my own name is my way of creating space for diverse forms of creativity to coexist naturally within my practice, free from the pressures of personal branding.
This is my anti-brand: a deliberate refusal to simplify or package my work into a narrowly conceived product for a pre-conceived audience. So, I invite you to listen to Mudchute Tape and tell me what you think. It's available right now on Bandcamp and will be out on Spotify and other streaming platforms this coming Friday.
If you’d like, you can pre-save it here: mudchute tape by Bodhi Landa
As we collectively navigate a world swiftly moving toward AI-driven creative abundance, intentional simplicity, limitation, and personal specificity feel ever more vital. The humble act of deliberately making work from genuine experience—embracing imperfection, immediacy, and lived authenticity—might soon become a radical artistic gesture, reclaiming creativity from a future dominated by automated perfection.