Today, Jonas Sjøvaag, currently a PhD fellow here at UiA, have released his latest album “III”. It is a recording made together with guitarist Juhani Silvola, and is the third release from this duo. It also features Andreas Ulvo on piano and minimoog, an improvised part made by Ulvo in his own studio later in the process. The album was released on Sjøvaag’s own label Shipwrecords.
It was initialized using Jonas’ ongoing AI collaborative partner, aptly titled MusicHal_9000; an AI collaborative agent that listens and responds, in real time. On this occasion, the agent was in version 1, meaning that it mostly provided what Sjøvaag now calls “a straight jacket of boredom and faulty responses”. By the time of this writing, MusicHal_9000 is in V3, and is, on its own, an ongoing exploration into the capabilities and compromises of machine learning in a live situation.
“After playing and improvising with it (V1) for the entirety of day 1, shutting it down on day 2 was a relief”, Sjøvaag says, and continues: “As is often the case, there is more to music, and everything else for that matter, than rules, logic and other aspects easily translated into numbers.”
“Music in the making: identities and personality at play” is the title of Sjøvaag’s PhD project, which is affiliated with CreaTeMe and Work Package 3 (WP3). Through his research, he explores how technology can be integrated into traditional music practice, as a collaborator instead of a replacer. “This is not a simple task”, he says. “The trick is, in my opinion, to figure out what data you want to work with, then tap into those as accurately as possible, before allowing ML mechanisms to search for connections that you wouldn’t have thought of yourself.”
Sjøvaag elaborates further on this topic in a a podcast by Jørn Erik Ahlsen Alkanger that was released earlier this week. In it, Jørn Erik and Jonas discuss and converse for more than an hour, covering a wide range of topics. Jørn Erik has also done this earlier with a range of Norwegian jazz musicians, and his podcast is one to pay attention to.
The album “!!!” was recorded in Sjøvaags studio in Oslo, Færder Audio, using Merging Technologies gear that captures every detail with pristine clarity. It was mastered and edited in the same location on a stereo mastering chain that is on par with all professional mastering studios in Norway, making it a pleasure to listen to.
“AI or no AI, the main success criteria here is the resulting music on the album” Sjøvaag continues. “In the end, listening is what it is all about, not the technology nor elaborate explanations”.
Sjøvaag will continue to delve into the gap between musical understanding and numerical translations for the remainder of this year, before presenting his final thesis in mid-February 2026.
Jonas Sjøvaag, Phd Research Fellow – Department of Popular Music
