INTERVIEW: Michael Hooker presents Welcome To The Warehouse

Featuring a sinuous, tribal-tinged vocal version and a reworking of progressive house, ‘Welcome To The Warehouse’ showcases artist Michael Hooker’s singular and personal take on genres, embracing new technologies to enhance his musical production.

In this work, Hooker has put artificial intelligence into practice in his work, thus giving it sound depth and the ability to generate endless structures and narratives. As fun as it is mysterious, this work opens the door to a way of relating to music and musical genres from another perspective. The authorship disappears, and now only the sounds make sense, which take on a greater presence, as if the same sounds wanted to reveal an enigma about us and about the universe.

 

 

How did your last song come about?

I’ve been fascinated with the development of AI technology over the past six months and wanted to use the emerging software and apps to generate vocals. I started with a subject in Chat GPT around a warehouse rave and tweaked the lyrics slightly. Then I put them into an AI voice generator and manipulated the voice into a circus ringmaster. The end result is exactly what I wanted and it’s all unique to the track which I think is great!

What was the concept behind this?

The track is all about enticing people into a warehouse rave. Using AI gave me the best results for this project. I had full artistic control to manipulate the sounds and get exactly what I wanted. The track is pretty dark and the voice fits extremely well.

 

 

 

 

As for your studio, what is it currently made up of?

 

I work in Ableton and I use a midi keyboard. I love to use the Arturia V synth collection and their Pigments synth. I’m a big fan of the Soundtoys plugins for effects and mixing. Another one is the Wavesfactory Trackspacer. I have also amassed a huge sample library. I tend to steer away from the common packs and look for textures and sounds outside of the norm.

 

 

What was the last record store you visited? And what did you salvage from there?

 

I have a huge collection of vinyls in storage but I haven’t been shopping for records in a while. However, I have been buying lots of music related books recently.  Including: Temporary Pleasure, Rave Art, Paper Cuts.

 

Do you have hope for the future of music? 

 

I do have hope for the future of music. The industry was closed all over the world from 2020 to 2021 and now it’s back with a bang! Concerts, Festivals and Club Nights are so important as it’s a way to escape day to day life and lose yourself in music. The industry is thriving again and it’s great to see!

 

Can you reveal some future projects?

 

 I have more new original music and remixes lined up for this year. I am also working new collaborations with D-Nox and then with Steve Parry of Selador Records. Plus some other projects I can’t spill the beans on yet.

What makes you happy?

Music makes me happy and I am very grateful that this is what I do full time. I DJ, I make music, I run a label – Re:Sound Music, I host label parties and I teach Music Production. It’s a lot of hard work but I love it!