Vanterra Arts – Tales Of Haruki

Vanterra Arts – Tales Of Haruki – EP Review

This should be a solid indication of how quickly things are moving and how the landscape is changing.  Last time, when I reviewed Vanterra Arts’ album City Bops back in August, I think I still had a little optimism that AI wouldn’t completely consume the independent music scene…and I no longer possess that same naivety.  Now I get it.  Now I know exactly how inevitable it really is.  AI is already everywhere, and all signs point to it just becoming more of a presence in music.  In fact, this past week alone I’m positive I’ve already worked with two other artists that had used it for their vocals, though I don’t have any concrete proof.  I think that’s the worst part of the AI surge for myself personally, and especially now that it’s already become so convincing – we’re already at the point where if we don’t know, we probably won’t know, you feel me?  At least Fred Vanterra is upfront about it all.  I’m not here to play guessing games so much as I’m here to tell ya what sounds good whether it’s been made by AI, or not.

Anyhow…amazing how fast things can change with technology, ain’t it?  I guess that’s the point.

So…Tales Of Haruki.  As I understand it, it’s kind of like a sequel of sorts.  When Fred was nuts deep creating City Bops earlier this year, he created ten different personas to guide the music by supplying each song a backstory/character of its own, with one of’em being Haruki.  Deciding to continue his story to see what else might come from it, Vanterra got busy talkin’ to Chat GPT and Suno AI, and here we are.  Incidentally, since we’ve commented previously on all my fears when it comes to technology and what not, I suppose I might as well continue the trend – Suno sounds freakin’ frightening.  Fred used an “Avatar feature making sure every song sounds (more or less) the same,” to which I’d respond, therein lies the problem my friend.  Honestly, it was a surprising detail to read considering many of the comment I’d made throughout City Bops and how similar the material could feel at times, right up to and including things I said about this record’s very firs song, “Summer Of ’84.”  I think us old analog folks are much more scared of the homogenization of music and its subsequent commodification to follow more than anything else…and like, as a creative artist myself, the last thing I’d wanna create is anything that would resemble whatever I created just before – but that’s me.  As I have come to realize, if we’re being objective about what we hear…I mean, you still have to acknowledge how good something can sound.  “Summer Of ‘84” is a perfect example – it’s a relentless smooth, light Pop groove, and there are basically no reasons not to listen to it.  It’s genuinely pleasant, it’s structured flawlessly, and everything from the music to the vocals sounds as organic as if you were to have played it yourself.  Not sure what else we can ask of the machines other than to disguise themselves as us to the point where we can’t tell but can still get 100% of what we want – kinda like how vegans eat things that aren’t chicken nuggets, but plants wrestled back & forth through the pulp machine and seasoned until they taste like they are.  “Summer Of ‘84” wouldn’t have been my first choice from City Bops to make a sequel EP to, but I get why Fred was interested in Haruki’s story and wanted to see where else it might lead, even if Suno is here to make sure he doesn’t wander too far away from the original setting & vibe.  You can read more of my thoughts about “Summer Of ‘84” by clicking here to read the review on City Bops from August.

A lot of this ultimately comes down to personal taste and what Fred likes to listen to, because this is basically new old stuff.  Fred’s probably younger than I am, so I don’t know if he’s got the ‘been there, done that’ feeling that I get when I listen to a track like “The Waters Of Sumida” so much as he might be chasing a specific sound he grew up loving & now wants to create himself.  No judgments here y’all – that’s still fully in-line with how the majority of you get into making music.  You want to emulate a style or a sound from an artist or band that you loved…that’s pretty much the spark that ignites the blaze in all of us.  Just because AI is involved doesn’t make that desire any different – it actually makes it was more attainable for people.  I’ll be truthful with ya and say that the majority of the time I’m listening to music, I simply want it to be coherent and listenable…and if that’s the criteria, then AI has to be an acceptable tool.  Maybe less challenging in terms of like…well…I mean – half the time I’m writing about music, I’m pointing out this or that that can be improved for whatever reason…and AI kind of takes most of that away.  It’s engineered to be as efficient as it is, and you get what you’re paying for – I listen to a track like “The Waters Of Sumida” and I know there’s nothing technical to pick on…which is no fun for me.  From there it’s all just a matter of personal taste on our side of the speakers, and what the goals are on Fred’s.  I could tell ya that “The Waters Of Sumida” might not be my own kinda jam for what I’d normally listen to, but so what?  That’s just an opinion.  What I’m saying is that there’s less space for observation when we know the end results of something are just gonna be all smoothed out & perfect.  Nothing wrong with that if that’s what you’re looking to create, of course.  In my own daily life outside of reviewing tunes and writing press releases & bios for a living, I was born Grunge and that’s who I’ll always be – essentially, I listen to music for the humanity inside of it, and I don’t quite know how we get around the lack of that inside an AI tune.  Sounds good, no doubt about that – but we knew it would, right?  The real question is, could “The Waters Of Sumida” come out any other way?  That being said, it’s still the same difference between the shiny Pop songs you’ve always heard, versus the sound of a bunch of meat-bags thrashing around with their guitars and bangin’ on drums in a Grunge tune – there’s a chasm of difference between what the standards are for perfection in each style, and the latter isn’t really seeking out to create a perfect cut so much as they’re looking to create a memorable experience.  So really, any issues I might have with “The Waters Of Sumida” would be the same as the arguments you’ve heard a million times between really well-crafted Pop versus the organic sloppiness of Grunge or any other kind of music where we can hear that human fluctuation/tendency to color outside the lines.

Don’t get me wrong…I have observations, and I have opinions, but I still have no real choice when it comes to my oath of being objective – what you’ll hear on Tales Of Haruki sounds great…there’s really no other conclusion that could be drawn.  Born Grunge or not, I’m still not immune to a good jam in any style or genre…and if I like something I hear, I’ve always been honest with ya about that.  So far so good when it comes to the content on Tales Of Haruki as far as my ears are concerned, but I was pleased to feel like “The Yellow Dress” was able to raise the stakes somewhat.  While these tunes basically have no choice but to sound good to us thanks to the precision coding & prompts of our friend Fred Vanterra of Vanterra arts, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to end up with situations where one song might have a way stronger hook than another right beside it, which is what it was like to listen to “The Yellow Dress” from my perspective.  What a stellar chorus!  More-so than any particular element in the music, it’s really been the vocals in AI that have been so impressive to me since I started taking a deeper dive into this new realm of synthesized digital tunes…it’s uncanny how close these machines can get to sounding just like us.  So heck yeah, I’m all about hearing the voice on “The Yellow Dress” reach for the stars when it’s called for in the chorus and hearing those hooks come out to their maximum potential.  I’d be crazy not to feel that way, wouldn’t I?  Like I’ve been tellin’ ya from the get-go…no judgements here – if you want more of a sound you love, you’ve got all the means to go out and make that now – so have at’er.  Presumably, like Fred, you’ll want a quality version of whatever that sound you love is, and you’ll take all the right steps & care required to make new stuff that way, just like he has.  “The Yellow Dress” is not that far removed from something like…hmm…probably something like Keane when it comes to the main hooks of the chorus…and I still listen to that band quite frequently.  Nothing not to like about “The Yellow Dress” though…we already knew the technical stuff would be in-line, so it was actually nice to hear the substance rise up to rival the technology of it all.  Plus, how many times are you gonna hear me utter “I bring the beat back to the bop” and tell you it’s one of my favorite lines inside a song in one lifetime, right?  Here we are, and that’s the truth.  I like everything about “The Yellow Dress” though, so there’s that…but yeah…even I’d admit that line would normally make me bristle, but I truly love it here.  It’s probably fair to say that the chorus largely shapes my whole opinion of this song and how much it appeals to my ears, but everything surrounding it is good too, and has no problem keeping me listening.

So maybe that’s what it becomes.  Maybe it’s never going to be about technical stuff anymore if the playing field becomes completely level.  If that’s the case, we’re really just comparing playlists and what we would each keep on one as individuals with our own unique preferences.  If Fred’s all about listening to songs like “Stuck In The Past” and wants to hear more of’em, he can create them himself now – and who would I be to tell him to do anything different?  I don’t think it’s any kind of big secret that he and I have pretty divergent taste when it comes to what we’d regularly listen to, but the fundamental reasons as to why we listen to what we like to listen to would be exactly identical, just like they’d be for you as well.  It’s simple – we wanna hear what we like, full stop.  So if that’s “Stuck In The Past,” for Fred, then so be it I say!  I’m all for getting everything you want out of life, so if Fred feels like he was missing out on having enough City Bops and has chosen to fix that problem with his own two hands and brainwaves, then of course I salute that.  The chorus seems to be what’s packing in the payload for these songs so far, and again, I’d tell ya that’s just as true when it comes to “Stuck In The Past” as well.  Doesn’t really seem to matter which song it is, AI knows it better get its ass a-movin’ and deliver when it comes to the main hooks, and so far as I can tell, is built to respond with results there.  I don’t mind the verses of “Stuck In The Past,” or “The Yellow Dress” before it, but they’re not the main draws of the material, in my opinion.  Not like that isn’t the case for a million other songs out there…that’s a pretty common assessment when it comes to a ton of music, but my only responsibility is to be objective and tell you about what I’m honestly hearing…so it is what it is – fair commentary.  “If I could step into tomorrow, would it heal or bring more sorrow?” would be an example of a great lyric that I think is effective, and right after, where you’ll hear “the future waits, but I can’t run fast, when my heart is stuck in the past,” you get the opposite of whatever great is.  Might be a little bit of a toss up for me on a lyrical level, but as I’ve told ya many times in the past, the right moment can convince us something is worth listening to.  I might not love the lyrics that I cited, but I’d still never dispute that it sounds good…so there’s that.  I think that second half of the chorus is set up so well by the first half that you don’t really have an option other than accepting the entire thing as a whole, and I’m cool with that.  I also really liked how it expands further as it plays on, with “good memories brighten my day, but they darken my night when they won’t go away” – that’s actually pretty damn genius-level stuff when it comes to that insightful lyric.  There’s always going to be push/pull as we experience evolution together…some of it good, some of it not, sometimes it moves forwards, and sometimes it moves backwards.  Be patient…we’re learning.

I guess the final remaining question is, were we right to be fearful of Suno overseeing this project in its attempts to make “sure every song sounds (more or less) the same?”  Did that actually happen here?  I think I get what Fred means (more or less) by what he’s saying…and it’s probably not as dramatic as I made it seem to be at the start, I’ll admit.  You shouldn’t have any problem being able to hear what the defining qualities and characteristic of what makes each song unique from the others surrounding it.  Do they bear intense similarities?  For sure.  Whether it’s the structure & compositions, or the sound of an element like the bass that seems to want to approach everything with the same style, you’ll definitely notice that there are common threads that tie the material together, but again, for the most part, that’s something we all generally want in a record we’re listening to.  It can potentially be risky, but in the short confines of a five song EP, I don’t see too much harm in it…I don’t think Tales Of Haruki is long enough to have to worry about watering down the set-list with too many similarities.  Chances are, most folks will listen to this record and simply feel like they’ve got no objections to what they hear – it’s a pleasant experience, and that’s something we should pretty much all be looking for in whatever we’re listening to, ain’t it?  As Tales Of Haruki finished up with “A New Day,” it would seem that our main character is heading towards a bright future ahead, without the burdens of fear and a renewed sense of interest in what could happen with the possibility in tomorrow.  Heck, we could all stand to learn a little something from our friend Haruki, could we not?  Pretty much the same for me in the sense that we’ve got an irresistible chorus on “A New Day” and some decent enough stuff surrounding it, but like I’ve already mentioned, that’s quite often the case whether you’re listening to something AI generated, or not.  From here…how does it go on to improve?  I dunno…we might have to look into firing Suno, Fred.  While I do think cohesion is a good thing generally speaking in the context of any record, I do think we’re still missing a bit of variation in the sound that we’d get in an organic record…this is music that works like a targeted advertisement would.  As a result of everything being so smooth on a technical level, it’s also hard to argue that this doesn’t all come out sounding & feeling pretty safe too overall…and now I’m wondering if there’s a version of an AI tune out there that will feel daring or inspired to me, as opposed to the inherent professionalism that you get out of really well-made songs.  We’ll have to wait for Fred to make a Grunge album one day so I can figure all that out (more or less).  As it stands, I think he’s created more of what he loves to listen to with Tales Of Haruki, and if you like your well-crafted Pop songs that are on the lighter side of the genre’s sound, there’s a very good chance that you’ll love it too.

Find out more about Vanterra Arts from the official website at:  https://vanterraarts.com

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