Undertow
Unthinkable things. In stereo. An ongoing musical experiment: tune in, explore the recordings, and bring an idea that changes what happens next.
Undertow is an ongoing musical experiment you can walk into. There is something playing, a history to explore, and an open line through which your ideas can influence what happens next.
Come for the music
I want to hear things I wouldn’t have thought to ask for. Music with its own peculiar logic. A groove that gets under your skin. A sound that makes you stop whatever else you were doing.
Undertow gives that curiosity somewhere to live. Everyone tunes into the same running programme. You can stay with it, explore the recordings, or bring an idea of your own. A physical impossibility. A rhythm. A memory. Something you don’t yet have the words for.
The room belongs to an impossible pirate station, full of paper, records and remembered connections. Its history is imagined; the experiments and recordings are real.
Bring something strange
Open the station and press Tune in. Listen for a while. If something occurs to you, open the line.
Calls influence later recordings: generation takes minutes, so the response isn’t instantaneous. You can return to an idea, correct it, or follow where it leads. The invitation is to participate in an evolving musical world.
You don’t need to know how any of the machinery works to listen.
Behind the signal
Underneath Undertow is a continuing investigation into generative music, DJ decisions, memory and human taste. Google’s Lyria generates recordings; the surrounding system carries ideas between calls, musical decisions and the programme you hear.
I’m interested in what happens when you push beyond a model’s familiar arrangements. What does it do with an unusual musical relationship? Can a sound become the organising principle of a piece? When does an experiment become something you actually want to hear again?
The requests and results are retained so those questions can be investigated. Asking for something doesn’t mean it happened. Listening matters.
Two months into the experiment
Undertow has been broadcasting since September 2026. I’ve spent much more time making it than telling people it exists. This page is an attempt to correct that.
It is still changing. That’s part of the pleasure. Come and hear where it is now.
For the more personal story behind the machines and the music: Homesick for the Future. For the questions that keep the experiments moving: The Groove Isn’t in the Notes.