Uncanny Valley: charting a new era of musical creativity

• Author: Catherine Jewell
• Position: Information and Digital Outreach Division, WIPO

In 2019, Uncanny Valley collaborated with Google’s Creative Lab and emerging Australian artists on an experiment using machine learning to build progressive tools they could use in their songwriting process. (Photo: Courtesy of Google Creative Lab, Sydney, Australia)

Uncanny Valley generally relates to an uneasy feeling humans have about things that aren’t quite human. How did you come to call your company Uncanny Valley?

My co-founder Justin Shave came up with it. After unpacking its meaning, I embraced the fact that we were destined to be a progressive music tech company in an industry we both knew well.

(PHOTO: COURTESY OF UNCANNY VALLEY)

Justin is a classically trained pianist and a music technologist with a computer science background and I am a songwriter and a singer. We both have a strong interest in innovation. There were shifting sands in the music industry in 2010, when we established the company, so it made sense to work with a forward-looking partner. We have always had an open approach to collaborators and have not confined them to traditional musicians and producers. I think we have grown into the name. You could say that we are trying to surpass the uncanny valley in the field of music, which is probably one of the most interesting challenges of our time.

Tell us about your business model

We have two revenue streams. One is through commissions to create original music or re-mix music (where you take a known, licensed song and recreate it with a new vocalist) and the other is the royalties that come to us when these programs are broadcast. In Australia, we work on a range of projects, including, for example, Australian Survivor, which needs a lot of music to drive it along. These revenues drive the company’s day-to-day operations and fund our more progressive AI and machine learning pursuits.

Tell us about your work on augmented creativity

It’s incredibly exciting. It started formally in 2019, when we collaborated with Google’s Creative Lab and emerging Australian artists on an experiment using machine learning to build some progressive tools they could use in their songwriting process. Their feedback during the design phase was invaluable.

In general, they enjoyed the process but were quite vocal when they felt the tools were stepping on their toes. For example, our AD LIBBER app, which is designed to spark lyrical ideas, was welcomed by one artist who struggled with lyrics, but did not appeal to another who had a talent for phrasing. Another app called Demo Memo, allowed the artists to hum or whistle a melody and transform it into an instrument of their choice, thereby speeding up the demo process significantly. They all appreciated that.

The experiment was a great opportunity to push and pull at these concepts. We’ve continued to develop them through our music engine, MEMU, which is an...