Berlin-based avant-garde pop trio Painting is giving AI a human voice on their new album "Snapshot Of Pure Attention".

A breathlessly unpredictable collision of punk energy, math-rock time signatures, techno beats, free-jazz sax solos, blaring synthesisers and tumbling call-and-response vocals, "Snapshot Of Pure Attention" is the incredible second album by fast-rising Berlin trio Painting. It's the much-anticipated follow-up to Painting's critically acclaimed 2022 debut album "Painting Is Dead", which saw them hailed as "the greatest new band in the German pop avant-garde" by Rolling Stone.

Painting are Theresa Stroetges (vocals, bass, guitar, synthesiser), Christian Hohenbild (vocals, drums, electronics) and Sophia Trollmann (vocals, saxophone, synthesiser). Stroetges and Hohenbild previously performed together in the band Soft Grid, while Trollmann contributed saxophone to one of Stroetges's solo albums under her Golden Diskó Ship moniker.

Formed in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, they have an unconventional setup which sees all three members share vocals (with Stroetges most often taking the lead), play multiple different instruments, and each contribute to a highly democratic songwriting and song arrangement process. "Our motto is that every idea has to be tried out at least once," explains Stroetges, “even if two of the three of us are sceptical about it. They might be surprised!"

Drawing on an expansive and explosive palette ranging from experimental rock and electronic avant-garde sounds to leftfield pop, techno and jazz, Painting Is Dead was a constantly shifting and refreshing kaleidoscope of sounds that felt like it was fighting to escape the rigid confines of conventional songcraft. The album was written and made at a time when music venues were closed, so the band collaborated with artist Paula Reissig to create walk-through 3D Games for each song on the album (all of which can still be played for free at paintingin3d.com).

Snapshot Of Pure Attention takes that same 'try anything once' songwriting ethos to a whole new level, by drawing influences from anywhere and everywhere – from Omar Souleyman to Billie Eilish, from Derya Yildirim to lyrics generated by Google’s AI LaMDA language models. All patiently and painstakingly refined and boiled down to 36 minutes of exquisitely controlled sonic chaos.

"The writing process of this album was 100% collaborative and took about two years," says Therese. “We met up one night a week to play together and look for new ideas. It was long, complex, and very satisfying. We recorded everything that felt promising, sent it around to one another, wrote our comments and continued the following week. Ideas that stuck were slowly elaborated upon and turned into parts. We wanted to try out every single possible combination at least once. It got complicated to memorise sometimes, so we went to Lidl and bought a magnetic whiteboard on which we could switch the parts around, as a visual aid to the song structures we were testing. It’s kind of hilarious, but it helped! Sometimes a song started with a general idea like ‘let’s make a techno song!’ or ‘let’s make a song that starts with lots of energy immediately!’ Sometimes ideas just came to us and kept growing.”

During the making of the record and long conversations in the van as they toured widely for "Painting Is Dead", the trio talked a lot about artificial intelligence, human reactions to these technologies, and their meaning for society. They listened to talks and visited exhibitions and performances relevant to the topic. Thinkers like Donna Haraway and Legacy Russel inspired them. Questions about social norms, body and gender, which were already important issues on Painting’s debut album, returned on Snapshot Of Pure Attention in the form of questions about AI.

"Instead of using AI to make music with us," explains Therese, "we are more interested in embodying perceived feelings and thoughts of an artificial sentient intelligence with our bodies and voices in order to explore the similarities and differences to basic human emotions. This idea evolved into a new mini-choreography to the track "WYWAYWG" where the three of us reinterpret the classical robot dance and the movements of NPCs (non-player characters in video games). Visual elements of our new live show are also inspired by these ideas.

"We lend our human bodies to the disembodied AI LaMDA and try to reproduce their presumed thoughts, ideas and feelings with our voices. When we sing and interpret their words, humans and machines swap roles and biological beings become the mouthpiece."

"Snapshot Of Pure Attention" will be released on April 11th, 2025 on vinyl and via digital services, jointly by Berlin’s Sinnbus and the isle of Eigg, Scotland’s Lost Map Records.

Malcolm Jack