Affinity (album)

Haken. Affinity. Inside Out Music. 2016.

Musical album, a "collection of compositions on interrelated themes," according to the review by Ivaylo R. Shmilev (along with The Astonishing) in SFRA Review #318 (Fall 2016): pp. 36-38.[1]

The album is presented as a software release from the 1980s (the introduction is titled “affinity.exe”) and the predominant colour is a CGA-era monitor green. (Shmilev p. 38) * * *

The individual compositions are interconnected by resurfacing images: gravity binds protagonists; human designs are “shifting frame by frame”; the Sun is dying [...]. The mood surges from bleakness and destruction to hope, change, evolution, and back. In “Initiate”, an AI protagonist watches from afar: “I observe a world jarring in turmoil / a million people waging war at the hands of a god”. The machine has a plan to ensure humanity’s survival which, however, requires its own banishment into the unknown. Torn between hope and desolation, the AI asks one final question: : “tell me / [...] / how does it feel to breathe?” (Shmilev p. 37; ellipses in Shmilev's review [we have added spacing between quoted lines])

Note that Artificial Intelligence and its apparent pathos.

RDE, finishing, 5Sep21