{"id":181855,"date":"2025-04-12T02:59:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T02:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/ambient-music\/adi-gelbart-chain-d-l-k\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T02:59:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T02:59:39","slug":"adi-gelbart-chain-d-l-k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=181855","title":{"rendered":"Adi Gelbart | Chain D.L.K."},"content":{"rendered":"


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Adi Gelbart<\/strong> doesn\u2019t just make music \u2013 he builds universes from rewired circuits, stray thoughts, and instruments both classical and invented. He\u2019s the kind of artist who\u2019ll teach himself trombone just for color, build a cello-synth hybrid for live shows, and write a novel while composing for a big band. With \u201cLiquids & Flesh\u201d<\/strong>, his first full-length album in nearly a decade, Gelbart returns with synthetic choirs, AI paranoia, glitched-out psych-pop, and the occasional bunny theatre interlude. We caught up with him to talk about sentient computers, emotional cuicas, tape tricks, and why making five throwaway songs a day might be the key to salvation. Enjoy reading and listening!<\/p>\n

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\"Adi
courtesy of Madlen Wittenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Chain\u00a0D.L.K.<\/strong>: Hi Adi! How are you doing?<\/p>\n

Adi Gelbart<\/strong>: Not too bad!<\/p>\n

Chain\u00a0D.L.K.<\/strong>: \u201cLiquids & Flesh\u201d is your first full-length album in nine years. What inspired you to return with this record now? <\/p>\n

Adi Gelbart<\/strong>: I was busy with other projects for a while \u2013 finishing writing my novel \u201cEgglike\u201d, then diving into a series of notated works for acoustic instruments and electronics. Each one was a dream come true and I was thrilled with the results \u2013 especially the one where I got to write for a full-sized big band \u2013 and yet looking back, I found the process a bit lacking. You spend a year composing, hearing everything through MIDI instruments on a computer, imagining how it\u2019ll sound with real players. I missed the immediacy of working solo, surrounded by actual sounds, knowing right away what\u2019s beautiful and what\u2019s throwaway. So, I made a new resolution: record as many albums as I can, at home, on my own. I play many instruments, which opens up endless possibilities. I recently started teaching myself trombone and harp so that I\u2019d have even more colors at my disposal.<\/p>\n

Chain\u00a0D.L.K.<\/strong>: The album blends synthetic voices, algorithmic models, and vocoders with acoustic and analog instruments. What drew you to explore this fusion of the human and artificial? <\/p>\n

Adi Gelbart<\/strong>: The human voice has an enchanting property \u2013 it instantly triggers a deep emotional pull in the psyche, more so than any other instrument. I suspect it\u2019s wired into us by evolution. It goes even beyond human voices \u2013 there\u2019s a song by Chico Buarque called \u201cDesalento,\u201d where near the end a choir sings the melody together, and then a cuica blends in, sounding like monkeys chattering. I always become very emotional during that part, as if there\u2019s still a monkey living inside me answering the call of the tribe. <\/p>\n

I thought it would be interesting to use the magic of the human voice but create it electronically instead so that the listener feels the human warmth while sensing something synthetic behind it. It creates this subtle, uncanny effect that\u2019s hard to pin down.<\/p>\n

Chain\u00a0D.L.K.<\/strong>: The track \u201cNubachi (It Who Is Alive)\u201d is particularly striking with its choral-like artificial voices. Can you tell us more about its creation and meaning? <\/p>\n

Adi Gelbart<\/strong>: The inspiration comes from the haunting polyphony of the Baroque era like Allegri\u2019s Miserere or Lotti\u2019s Crucifixus a 8. These are crazy pieces in the way they weave human voices into something eerily transcendent (you wouldn\u2019t get this effect from regular instruments!). I wanted to play with this style and these colors as a starting point but switch it up: instead of humans singing to God, it\u2019s computers chanting in praise of their future god \u2013 the first sentient computer or \u201cIt Who Is Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chain\u00a0D.L.K.<\/strong>: Your music often feels like a narrative unfolding through sound. Is there a conceptual or thematic thread running through the album? <\/p>\n

Adi Gelbart<\/strong>: I don\u2019t start an album with a theme in mind, but it\u2019s funny how one sneaks in once the songs come together. For \u201cLiquids & Flesh,\u201d the thread is my obsession with the rise of AI in the last few years. It\u2019s a theme I\u2019ve touched on before \u2013 in my book \u201cEgglike,\u201d where a sentient computer is one of the main characters, and in the title of my previous album \u201cPreemptive Musical Offerings to Satisfy Our Future Masters\u201d (Gagarin Records). Back then it was a far-off idea, but now that the AIs are here in our daily lives, I can\u2019t stop thinking about it. I have this morbid fascination with the end of humanity \u2013 not that I want it, but too many nights of falling asleep to doomsayers like Roman Yampolskiy half-convinced me that we might be living on borrowed time. Even if we dodge that, our creativity is under threat \u2013 they\u2019re training computers to be artists now. What\u2019s left for us? So with this album, I leaned into my human imagination, still free from machine input, and acoustic instruments, as a way to assert my humanity. The computerized voices are the shadows creeping in from a future about to come.<\/p>\n