Canadian indie singer-songwriter Patrick Watson hast revealed an album trailer for his new album Love Songs For Robots, the largely piano-led trailer features the track ‘In Circles’ which is peppered throughout with subtle ambient electronica and interference.
It has a glowing and warm neo-classical edge. Maybe it was the robot theme ‘Love Songs For Robots’ that immediately made me think of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?…if there is a connection it plays out like an upbeat soundtrack to a day-in-the-life of Rick Deckard…but a positive one, as if the Bladerunner had a replicant-killing free day. It all fits the theme as well – now it’s lodged in my head it will be difficult to shake off.
Despite the analogy Watson reveals it’s more a reflection on the human condition in particular our own curiosity and inspiration…
“I started thinking about things in a very mechanical way. I found it interesting how we would use our senses to come up with an emotional reaction. As I get older you get to know yourself better and I realized that a lot of my emotional reactions were mechanical responses and that was hugely influential. I didn’t want to be a robot. But the reason why we are superior to computers is that we have emotions and I realized that emotions are mechanical so the only thing left between us and robots is curiosity and inspiration – and I don’t think you can program that into a computer. That’s definitely where I was at when I started writing the record.”
More soon.