ako: Algorithms of Loving Grace
support from Late Girl
Experimental. Thought-provoking. Explore AI’s capacity to hurt or help.
Algorithms of Loving Grace is a concept album by ako (alias of Simeon Soden) created during his time as a 2024/25 Artist in Residence at The Glasshouse. Join ako in exploring our growing relationship with AI and its potential to enhance or disrupt human experience at an unforgettable live, immersive audio-visual performance of the album this June.
Need to know
Venue: Sage Two Cabaret Layout
Price: Pay what you decide.
Stage Times:
7.30pm Doors to Sage Two
8pm – 8.30pm Late Girl
8.30pm – 8.50pm Interval (20mins)
8.50pm – 9.40pm ako
Timings are subject to change
Age: Under 14s must be accompanied by an adult.
About Algorithms of Loving Grace
Algorithms of Loving Grace is named after Richard Brautigan’s poetic work on technological utopias (‘All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace’) as a nod to AI algorithm’s potential for positive change.
Its themes include AI’s impact on creativity and creative work, labour, economies, warfare, and the environment—forming a musical ‘essay’ on the ethics of AI integration.
On the one hand, AI has potential for harm. It could create unemployment and inequality. Increasing AI automation could lead to artforms including music becoming oversaturated and devalued. Plus there are ethical concerns about how it could be used in warfare and its environmental impact from resource and consumer demand.
However, AI offers opportunities—boosting productivity, enabling wealth redistribution to improve equality, and supporting climate solutions through advanced data analysis. The project imagines AI’s potential to redefine work, allowing individuals to engage in socially valuable pursuits beyond traditional labour.
Watch
About ako
ako is a North East-based electronic musician, producer, and performer who blends vaporwave influences with experimental dance music. His performances are an audiovisual experience, incorporating creative coding, modified game consoles, VHS manipulation, analogue video equipment, and CGI. He often repurposes obsolete tech as a statement against hyper-consumerism.
ako’s music has been released through international labels and featured on BBC 6 Music, Spotify editorial playlists, Tom Robinson’s ‘Fresh on the Net,’ and BandCamp Daily. He co-founded Kaneda Records, Northern Electric Festival, and Linebreak Records—the world’s first cryptocurrency label as part of his PhD research. In 2021, ako was commissioned to produce a remix for ‘Eyeliner’ (aka Luke Rowell / Disasteradio) as part of a project and new collection by New Zealand National library.
He’s also a member of Badger, a collaborative spoken word, no wave and noise pop project who’ve had a track remixed by Andrew Fearn (Sleaford Mods) and have an upcoming debut album. He previously completed a Masters in Music at Newcastle University.
About Late Girl
Late girl is Newcastle-based Spanish composer/improvisor Laura Stutter Garcia, purveying real-time future experiments with unilateral beat whippings, electronic improvisation with live vocal processing and hyper-saturated melding soundscapes. Late Girl is also part of Newcastle’s emerging international Wild Wiring project.
Praise for Late Girl:
“A fearsomely intense set by the Newcastle-based Spanish singer-producer Laura “Late Girl” Stutter García which evokes minimalist composition, early grime and Björk all at once.” (Guardian)
“Poetic polemics and a sly sense of humour to craft an intelligent and distinctly modern form of experimental pop”(NARC).
