It’s the Appetite for Destruction of graying techno fans. Dig in their closet, past the strata of tech house, minimal and ambient layers and you’ll inevitably find a copy of this green-bordered album with a golden man on the front.
The rare release that’s been as important to a genre as it was to the label that released it, Artificial Intelligence was released 30 years ago and Warp is celebrating with a 30th anniversary reissue and a trippy website that takes you into the post-coital golden man’s proto-VR living room.
The 10 track EP of “electronic listening music” features two cuts from Autechre and Speedy J (including “De-Orbit”), plus Richie Hawtin (as “UP!”), Aphex Twin (as “The Dice Man”), The Orb’s Dr. Alex Paterson, Musicology (Michael Golding and Steve Rutter) and Ken Downie (aka I.A.O.).
In honor of the anniversary, we asked AI to illustrate AI by prompting Stable Diffusion to compose “a painting of a robot man listening to music in his living room” and we got this.
Warp’s is probably better.
Warp’s reissue features a vinyl release, WAVs, MP3s and a handful of merch.
Listen to the full LP above or on Spotify:
