aceRobert Laidlow: Reality Eaters album review
Robert Laidlow is as at home in the realms of science and technology as he is in the world of classical music. As this NMC debut album demonstrates, his intricate, wildly imaginative work is eminently approachable, even if the core concepts are highly complex. Warp, a terse, 12-minute piano concerto, proposes a musical solution to Einstein’s field equations as the intrepid Joseph Havlat boldly goes where no pianist has gone before amid the distorting fabric of orchestral space-time. Strident orchestral lines spi…
On 17 July 2026 The Guardian reviewed Robert Laidlow's album Reality Eaters, highlighting Silicon, a three-movement work that incorporates AI. The review notes Laidlow wrestling with a machine instructed to imitate his output, using adaptive electronics for deepfakes, and pitting the BBC Philharmonic against an algorithm trained on its own broadcasts.
The piece matters because it documents a concrete artistic deployment of generative AI in classical music, framing deepfakes and automated imitation as direct challenges to human creativity and performer identity. It remains uncertain from the review alone how the AI was built, what data permissions were involved, or how audiences distinguish human from synthetic material.
- Silicon is a three-movement symphonic work that explicitly reckons with AI impact on human creativity.
- One movement features a machine instructed to imitate Laidlow's own compositional output, another uses adaptive electronics for musical deepfakes.
- Final movement pits the BBC Philharmonic against an AI algorithm trained on its own broadcasts, including phantom announcers.
AI systems trained to imitate a composer's output and an orchestra's broadcasts enable diabolical musical deepfakes that challenge human creativity.
The rundown
The Guardian review of NMC debut Reality Eaters describes three works: Warp, a 12-minute piano concerto with Joseph Havlat and the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni, Gravity played by the Piatti Quartet, and Silicon.
Silicon is structured as Mind, Body, and Soul. Mind wrestles with imitation, Body uses adaptive electronics for deepfakes, and Soul stages a confrontation between the live BBC Philharmonic and an AI model trained on its broadcasts.
Sources
- JournalismThe Guardian2026-07-17
How should this claim be treated?
The debate