Olivier Alary – Imagined Presence (Superpang) – “Montreal-based composer (and former Björk collaborator) Olivier Alary’s Imagined Presence was released last Friday via the Superpang label. A powerful piece of hauntological melancholia, the half-hour work is composed entirely from AI-generated material, imagining a post-human world in which artificial intelligence conjures a synthetic auditory memory of our presence” so says the press release that came with Olivier Alary’s new album.

“What will be left of our time after we’re gone? An artificial entity attempts to remember our existence.” reads the press release, “Imagined Presence is a 33-minute-long electroacoustic composition that explores the sonic footprint of contemporary human existence through the lens of artificial intelligence. In this work, Alary imagines an AI reconstructing the auditory memory of humanity: the hum of cities, the resonance of empty rooms, the echoes of vanished lives”.  

The press release goes on to tell us that “none of these sounds ever truly existed; they are hallucinations, synthetic memories produced by neural networks trained on the residue of human perception. Composed entirely from AI-generated material, the piece unfolds as a single immersive continuum where mechanical and organic textures intertwine and dissolve into one another. Familiar sounds, such as voices, machinery, music surface briefly before dissolving into spectral harmonics and electronic haze. Through this interplay, Imagined Presence evokes the melancholic beauty of a civilisation remembered only through the distortions of its own technological mirror”. 

(We just had to correct the American spellings in the press release sent from a London based PR company, can we blame AI for that as well?)  

“The project was conceived as a creative dialogue with neural networks, approaching AI not as a tool but as a collaborator. Over the past two years, Alary generated thousands of sounds, organising them as carefully as field recordings. The structure of the piece grew from conversations with AI chatbots about the possible disappearance of humanity and the sonic traces we might leave behind”. 

Over the past twenty-five years, Olivier Alary has built a singular body of work at the intersection of experimental, popular, and contemporary music. Initially known under the moniker Ensemble, he collaborated with Björk on ‘Medúlla’ and other projects, and has also worked with Cat Power. His albums, released on labels such as Rephlex, FatCat records, 130701, and LINE, explore the fusion of instrumental and electronic textures with a distinctive poetic sensibility. In addition to his solo work, Alary has collaborated with artists such as Doug Aitken, Nick Knight, and Grégory Chatonsky, with projects presented at the Centre Pompidou, MACBA, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. These works blended sound, image, and generative systems, exploring how technology transformed perception and memory. 

With Imagined Presence, Alary extends this trajectory into the realm of artificial cognition, crafting an imaginary archaeology of sound, an echo of human presence remembered by machines”. 

AI as tool, as collaborator? Well we do keep hearing the argument about AI being just another tool to use. Let’s try it; Hey AI, is Is Olivier Alary’s Imagined Presence any good?

“Olivier Alary’s new album, Imagined Presence, released on November 21, 2025, has been positively received in early reviews, particularly for its innovative use of AI-generated sounds and immersive, atmospheric quality. Reviews and descriptions highlight the following aspects:

Innovative Concept: The album is composed entirely from AI-generated material, using neural networks to produce “hallucinations” or “synthetic memories” of sounds that never truly existed. The project treats AI as a collaborator rather than just a tool.

Atmospheric and Immersive Sound: The piece is described as a “single immersive continuum” where mechanical and organic textures blend, creating a soundscape that is “shimmering, grainy, enveloping”.

Emotional and Thought-Provoking: The music is said to evoke the “melancholic beauty of a civilisation remembered only through the distortions of its own technological mirror,” reflecting on human existence and our “vaporised social existence”.

Critical Reception: While the user query is recent, early impressions and product reviews from music sources like Boomkat and Bandcamp are highly favourable. One review describes the sound throughout as “wonderfully handled,” effectively repurposing noise and distortion for aesthetic effect”.

The U.S spelling in the answer to the question was AI’s annoying choice, we had to fix it all. AI also suggests that “the best way to determine if it suits your taste is to listen for yourself. You can stream or purchase the album on the Olivier Alary Bandcamp page. Is that enough? Is our work done here?

The cover artwork is by Gregory Chatonsky, although it isn’t clear if AI was used in the making of the cover artwork? I can’t say the album artwork really impresses that much, would have been interesting to know what the process was though…

Is that enough? Do we need to actually review Imagined Presence properly ourselves or has AI done it all for us? Do we ever review anything properly? Let’s actually say something about the album…

It is unnerving at times, chilling, the album I mean, both the reality and the result as well as the actually concept in terms of making it. Although as a concept Imagined Presence and the use of AI does depend on what you feed in to the idea in the first place and anyway didn’t something like this happen years ago in a Mad Max movie? Voices from a lost past? I guess I could ask AI but the thing is, when we do ask AI something that we already know the answer to, AI does have a tendency to reply with a very strange and often hopelessly wrong answer. As an album Imagined Presence is of course something deeper that just asking AI a question, something a little deeper than just asking it to make some music, this is about an artist’s or musician’s dialogue with those neural networks, it is about feeding the beast, working with it rather than just blindly accepting it all, this album is about using AI as a tool properly, I don’t buy the idea of this being a collaboration, although as an intelligent interaction with a machine on the artist’s part, it is a rather chilling idea as well as a sometimes chilling result. 

Cand we get away from the part played by AI? Is it possible to just treat it as a piece of music, as just thirty something minutes of almost classical post-modern composition? What Olivier Alary has done here with Imagined Presence is musically intriguing, haunting, it is a sometimes chilling piece of music. Those fragments of voices, those fragments of glimpses, those bits of music woven together or more knitted than woven, seamless, flowing, flowering. This is very listenable, it is enjoyable, although enjoyable probably isn’t quite the right word? It at times beautiful, almost soothing, clever, it has depth, it evolves, climbs up, lashes, takes a quiet breath, it is alive, it has warmth, can we say it has soul?

It does sound like a film soundtrack, or maybe it just paints pictures? A piece of music that makes suggestions? It isn’t relentless, never that obvious, nothing is obvious actually and what Olivier Alary has done here feels rather important as a piece of forward looking art. It feels like he’s in control, that he’s the musician, he’s the one using the machine more that collaborating with it, but that is the big question, is it a collaboration? Whatever he’s doing, or whatever the two parties are doing, the results are impressive, this is a fine fine piece of art, a warm piece of music, warmth isn’t a word associated with art made with AI and no it really isn’t possible to put aside the fact that this is made with AI, I rather like what Olivier Alary has done here though, it is indeed a powerfully dramatic piece of hauntological melancholia… (sw)