About one in three people will associate country music with wild western horror stories, where the vast emptiness of the prairies is inhabited by ghosts from ghost towns, and the restless souls of the shooters are still holding a pair of “peacemakers” ready to clash with the Wendigo. The fact that the Wendigo does not roam the prairies, but actually lives in the forests, does not matter at all. All this is a cultural concoction of metamodernity. A similar aesthetic was adopted by the Ghost Town Psalms project. Actually, there is no horror in it, except for the fact that the ensemble itself consists of digital spirits in cowboy hats, and the native valley of these brave guys is literally sinister.
The technological singularity is coming inevitably, like a bright socialist future. Ironically, the huge spread of artificial intelligence in the musical environment occurred precisely in country music. In this series of articles, I will talk about modern artists who actively work in collaboration with machine spirits, weaving them like obstinate bulls. Together with you, we will increase our expertise in using the Voight-Kampf test, so that more than one runaway synthetic will not escape our keen eyes and keen ears, and we will also understand how to live in this brave new world.
The main author of the Ghost Town Psalms project is a certain LT Stevenson. He is quite related to the human race, but strictly presumably. In some sources, he is listed as the author of lyrics and music, as well as a producer. But whether there really was a boy is not a completely closed question, since it was not possible to find at least one image of him in the flesh.
An appeal to the ARCANE MUSIC label did not yield results, although the Ace of Crows record is listed behind them. There’s hardly any great mystery here, it’s just that the streaming services got everything mixed up and labels with similar names got mixed up, as happens with namesake artists.
For lack of anything better, I will take on faith the statement that LT Stevenson does exist and sings quite well with his own voice, as does the John Parr I mentioned earlier. However, this doesn’t make Blade Runner’s detective work much easier: there are also a lot of female vocals on the Ace of Crows album. And whether there was a girl is definitely a mystery. Although the vocals look pretty lively.
As for the rest of the instruments, there is an obvious synthesis: the rhythm section, the violin – all this sounds catastrophically clean. No, the tracks are not generated by one omnipotent tool. Rather, the individual generated tracks were already brought together live, with the use of neuromastering at the end. That is, rather than the creation of artificial intelligence, it is the creation of an expanded human consciousness: digital country music for cybernetic cowboys.
Next, let’s look at the available discography. It starts with last year’s four-track EP Where the Road Goes.
Where the Road Goes (2025)
Some Prayer for Their Salvation is a pleasant Americana movement, with some Devil Makes Three influence, which is especially noticeable in the chorus area.
Don’t Take Our Country Away is a very interesting song, laced with a kind of unintentional hypocrisy. The lyrics tell about the delights of the old way of life. And it tells a very heartfelt story, if you forget that data centers do not grow on farms.
One Summer Night enters blues territory, but it’s also eclectic in the future, just like the first track.
The Only Rule Is Power is soothing and meditative, with the same intricate chorus as the rest of the album’s material.
In summary, I would like to praise the most human part of these songs – the lyrics. With their rich imagery, they are clearly at the forefront of this creativity.
I’ll ignore a lot of singles, with your permission, so let’s jump straight to this year’s full-length album, Ace of Crows.
Ace of Crows (2026)
Ace of Crows sounds much more rocky than the previous title, somewhat reminiscent of another cowboy of the machine spirit – John Parr. Overall, it’s a great bottle opener, but the mix looks really awkward in places: some elements are dirty, others are sterile.
Good Work Good Grace listens much more holistically, and indeed much more meaningfully. As usual, there’s a haunting chorus and some dancing. If you play like this live, you can become the most popular gang in your town. Bread and Water is generally the same, although much less cheerful.
And again, a little bit of blues, even blues-rock in The Line. Oh, this is a strange combination of a punchy electric train and pure acoustics! Meat musicians don’t do that!
Same Old Thunder is true country rock. Well, or country-pop-rock. Anyway, this song is quite catchy with its everyday message. In general, with such a gloomy album design and the artist’s name, I expected a lot more songs about all sorts of evil spirits, but somehow they didn’t deliver it. And it’s even better this way.
Branches on a Tree is good at the beginning, so it lets you exhale. A much more measured pace is good for her. But oh, these pauses are integral companions of neural arrangements.
Miss Those Trains is already somewhere between Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. It’s a good song, but it lacks a cantonal identity. It’s like there’s even too much of it in the next Through a Ghosttown, but somehow it’s too soundtrack-heavy. However, don’t expect any revelations from synthetics.
Hands Will Matter refreshes with its minimalism. Well, at first. It’s like it’s the most country-like of all the above. But something strange is happening to the harmonica, with the scent of the ominous valley.
There’s not much to say about Road I Roll, except that the piano here really messes up the whole arrangement. Not fatal, given the frightening wonders of spatial processing. There’s something downright scary going on with space in these tracks. Well, that is, if it were visual rather than auditory impressions, it would scare you to sleepless nights. Those who have ever dabbled with the thispersondontexist face generator will understand me.
Count the Time closes the album and… she’s completely unremarkable.
And now let’s answer the question that has been hanging in the air for a long time: is it creativity and what is its artistic value? It’s quite creative, at least counting humanly written and confused texts. Why sit around if there aren’t any savvy and cooperative musicians around?
With artistic value, everything is more complicated. It’s not zero, but it’s not very high. Of all the generations, it turns out to be a very good background “furniture”: you can easily listen to it while doing routine work or, as I did while writing this material, play a simple computer toy without much immersion. The digital crows turned out to be too agile and seemed to have eaten up too much of the human side of this particular artist. Well, let’s keep an eye on the fruits of progress.I’m sure there will be a lot of surprises for all of us.
