Aeaea, of course, was the island where Circe lived, and turned men into beasts.

I want to get down the obligatory “AI thinkpiece” — a bunch of thoughts about large language models, some McLuhan-isms, and so forth. This will hopefully be reasonably coherent, but it might age very poorly — the state of LLMs where I work, in software, has transformed in the last 6 months, and may (or may not!) transform again pretty quickly.

(n.b. that I don’t think that LLMs should be used for any kind of human to human communication, at all — but they sure can write code.)

The Code

A few years ago, I wrote a few words in this parish about how code, which one would think would be a hot, deterministic, high-information medium, has been getting colder and colder, as programming languages move up the stack, as the network and the internet become sources of indeterminism, etc.

With LLMs, especially with the current move to “the code does not matter, only measuring does”, the code is getting ice cold, approaching absolute zero. It’s a very strange feeling to ask an LLM to write some code, try the results, and ship it — especially when the LLM recalls a piece of syntax correctly that you recalled wrong.

This coldness has some consequences though, in that we don’t know how our systems will work. We know what they do, and perhaps why, but the how will become unintelligible.

This is, to say the least, a reverse of where writing software has been for the past umpteen years. We appear to now be working more like “real” engineers, who design, specify, verify, and occasionally go to Utah to yell at construction works on a mine that we designed.

(Except that “real” engineers have a few hundred years of culture and process to make sure that their work does not break … whereas we have 30 years of “move fast and break things”, and we may have other, different LLMs write code to verify the other code — hmm.)

There is an idea that the craft of writing code will go away. This is appealing in many ways — but it is not without risk. When the machines can’t save us, and pursuant to my prior post about coldness and moving down a layer of abstraction, at some point you need to debug the kernel, or patch core postgres code, etc.

There’s further an idea, based on the Jevons paradox, that we may or may not run out of software to write. Based on the Feature Request list at my current company, we’re nowhere close to that — but we may end up in a world where code is so “cheap” that people stop paying for software in toto. As yet, unclear.

The Culture

To riff back to McLuhan and coldness, McLuhan talked about oral culture vs print culture, but it is print culture that defines our entire* history of education. When all we do is talk to LLMs (and some people are literally moving away from typing to chatbots to speech with chatbots!), where and how will we study, in the traditional sense? And what will we learn?

(* Since … 1075 AD or so)

I also want to touch quickly on hosting. It is madness to me that we currently have this magic in the hands of 3 to 5 companies — but the hosting and training of these models is no joke. The phrase “I ran it on the University AI” keeps running through my brain, much more so than “I ran it on the city AI”, or “the government AI”.

Finally — if computers can do everything, what will we do? I’d point you to Iain Banks’ The Culture series as a utopian take, but I also want to point to a very current thing. Chess became pointless for humans in 2006, and it is now pointless for everyone, all the time — my phone has a strong enough CPU to beat the strongest human players every time.

And yet, in 2020, care of Netflix, the pandemic, and a dude from Norway with a good jawline, we had, and are still having, a chess boom. Why? What’s the point? Any answer other than “Because it’s there” is beyond the scope of this post, but “Because it’s there” is a pretty good answer.

To close on a cautionary note — I also keep thinking about Rudy Rucker, and his bizarro-world “Big Pig” internet, and the “oh, I’ll get the info from the Big Pig” addiction. It sure looks like many parts of LLM usage will not keep our minds working; we should be careful to take care of our minds, as they’re all we’ve got.

This was … a very difficult filter. Let’s pretend that I just ran out of room to write, as we transition from the “bests” into the “honorable mentions”. An amazing year for DJs and DJ culture.

NAP – liquidtime 13 – Lava Mistica

I am trying to remember how I started listing to this one — maybe it was after seeing a CCL show, maybe it was some other reference, but this NAP set basically had me saying either “what is going on” or “oh, this is a great record”, for the entire time.

CCL – liquidtime 14 – Sea Of Clouds

… and this one might be even better?!? I need to go over the entire liquidtime archive next year; this set got me through some bad days and made some good days even better.

upsammy – RA 970

More out-there bass, post-drum-and-bass, weight — I’d almost call it weightless, really, if the speakers were not shaking. This one also made a great “home listening experience”; credit to the DJ for getting the levels right.

DJ Voices – Sidestep Lifestyle

Voices plays for Andrew Weatherall — enough said.

Lukas Wigflex – RA 969

I thought I had this pinned down as an electro set — and then the techno shows up, and then then battletech showed up, and the bass got weirder, and parts of the electro came back … and, yeah, a really great thing from our man in Nottingham.

DJ Alfredo – Live at Amnesia 1989 (Part One)

What we talk about when we talk about Balaeric — goes from an edit of Strings Of Life to some chunky thing with a mumbled vocal talking about “feel the music in your butt / get upp”. As all of techno gets older and we appreciate the grand gesture and the archive more and more, we thankfully have things like this to remind us to get the butts moving.

Honors and honorables out to, what a great year:

• Moopie b2b Lena Wilikens @ Lot Radio, don’t tell me that “selectors” are over.
• Ron Trent – RA 996, perfect, lush house music.
• Optimo – 15 Years of Mr. Saturday Night — Optimo, JD, we hardly knew ye, we’ll miss you very much.
• 1morning & Regal86 – RA999, hardgrooooooove.
• Ben UFO – Live @ Sustain Release, 2025, masterful things.
• Mulatu Astatke – NTS, 2025-09-28, East African jazz and dust
• Justin Carter – How I Build A Floor (Live at Mister Sunday, July 20, 2025) — I was there for this one, it was as deep as you want.
• Scott Zacharias – No Way Back 2025, also as deep as you like.
• Peverelist b2b Pinch – Live @ Draaimolen Festival 2025, heavy, rather than deep, but great to see the ‘Ps’ rolling like this.
• Holden & Zimpel – Live at Mutek 2025 — see Albums, but really, deeply wonderful.

BUT

WAIT, HOLD IT

SPECIAL AWARD — RESIDENT ADVISOR

If you’re my age, you probably remember a time in maybe the early 2000s when residentavisor.net and progressive-sounds.com were the places on the internet to read about, well, progressive house and trance — I’m digging through their archives, and RA appears to have as their earliest thing 2001 Danny Howells review, and PS claims to have been running since 1999.

I don’t want to dunk on either of them for their past selves, as I also once overused the word “whilst”; rather I want to shower endless praise on RA for their transformation and ability to change over time. As of this year, it is now cool to say “we had a minimal techno podcast in 2005”, but there was a real chance that RA never made it out of the local minimum (see what I did there?) of prog turned into electrohouse turned into minimal, and that they disintegrated or failed or sold out like so many other internet cultural properties.

It’s easy to say “well, someone else would have done it” — what we’ve seen in the arts is that often no one else does it. Huge credit and huge thanks to everyone; it is a hell of an achievement.

And, I said last year, “What will they do for RA 1000?” — and they nailed it. They’re all great, but I’ll reference you to the Mark Ernestus one.

This year I added the “stats” page to my personal music player at tessellates, which was not that useful, but did help remind me of some records that I played a lot earlier in the year. Tough to not be “data driven”, once one has the data, but hopefully a balance can be found.

Kate Bush – Hounds Of Love

Well, a bit late to this one (I found a CD case in a free box, which ended up being empty, so I just bought the record, gasp) — but what an amazing record, and what an amazing resource of sounds and power. Maybe next year I won’t have a “classic from the 1980s” on this list?

Lea Bertucci – Hold Music

A winter and spring constant — these two tracks were, as suggested, mostly on background, but were a constant joy of details and subtleness when I dug into them.

Holden & Zimpel – The Universe Will Take Care Of You (plus live from Mutek!)

Very few people like James Holden more than me, but this one was not quite sitting at the peak of perfection for me … until I found this live set from Mutek (argh, why did I not go!), which gives the tracks from the album the life-force they need to really hit liftoff.

Kara-Lis Coverdale – From Where You Came / Changes in Air / A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever

A big year for Kara — I think Changes in Air just about sneaks it for me, but all of these albums are heartfelt and deep and thoughtful and calming.

Sweet Honey In The Rock – Sweet Honey In The Rock

This was a dig from what I think was DJ Voices’ last set at Nowadays, and then I got the album, and, shock, a dig from Voices is a really wonderful gospel / soul record.

Young American Primitive – Young American Primitive

I clicked into Bandcamp Daily at the wrong time and got sniped by this. Like all people who grew up on Sasha & Digweed, I knew “These Waves” — the rest of the album is maybe not quite that much of a high point, but it reads like an album, which I increasingly want in my old age, and it is a snapshot of when you could sample the Twilight Zone with a straight face … and, sneaky, most of the tracks are really good.

Xylitol – Anemones

High-energy, high-sugar drum & bass — I think from 2024 but you know the rules around here — this one also ties into the 16-bit video game pitched percussion sounds that I’ve been thinking about for at least the last 3 years, as well as general vapourwave “nostalgia”.

Grace Jones – Slave To The Rhythm

Not even really an album — like an EP with all the B-Sides clustered together, some awkward spoken word interludes / interview, a timeless prog house sample on ‘Operattack’, etc. What sells this is that Jones is clearly in on the joke; she knows that this whole thing is a bit of a bit, but she’s there to belt it or dance around it, as needed.

Honorable mentions, the most honorable!

• FKA twigs – EUSEXUA, very hard to keep this off the main list, but I think my nostalgia for this music is not quite right, alas!
• Nídia & Valentina – Estradas, this is just a great record, slightly more legible than some of the Principé magic.
• Jean Bikoko – Ma Cabo Ma Mo, the quest to buy wonderful West African pop records continues.
• Blissi Tebil – Ziglibity – La Continuite; see above.
• gyrofield – Suspension Of Disbelief, a perfect tech/dub/beat EP.
• Felix Hess – Frog Field Recordings — turns out that frogs make basically perfect techno loops.
• Break – Aeoui, a bunch of BIG TUNES that make a surprisingly coherent album listening experience, tm.
• Various Artists – Hypnotised: A Journey Through Trance Music — my youth! (Sort of; some of these records I thought were cheesy when I was 17, and I’m still right).
• Various Artists – Síntesis Moderna – An Alternative Vision Of Argentinean Music — not my youth, but what a shame, this youth seems pretty good.