Names: Kid Arrow and Markus Reuter
Occupations: Producer, composer, guitarist, educator (Markus Reuter), process, music creator (Kid Arrow)
Nationalites: Japanese (Kid Arrow), German (Markus Reuter)
Recent release: The latest Kid Arrow album In Unison, We Rise is out via bandcamp. It is the 18th collaboration between Markus Reuter and Kid Arrow, a process based on transformations of a single MIDI file. Also available is We Are Satellites, published both in a stereo- and a surround sound version.

If you enjoyed these thoughts by Markus Reuter and Kid Arrow and would like to find out more about their work, visit Markus's official homepage.

To keep reading, we also recommend our earlier Markus Reuter interview.

This interview is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Kid Arrow about the role of human composers in music. Read part 1. Read part 3. 



I wanted to talk about process, because I've always been fascinated by the topic. For me, I keep coming back to Gerhard Richter. He is a great example for someone who's found a process that works for him. He can get entirely unique and complex results very fast with a process that is both simple in a way, yet highly personal and apparently inimitable. That, to me is fascinating. But it did pose a question I found in a book by Philip Roth: Is the pleasure in creating something or having created something?

I think there's even more to it. There's also the enjoyment of the consumption of the resulting work. To me, that's the entire reason for the curation. Kid Arrow is an expression of a certain neediness. And I genuinely want to lose myself in listening to a piece of art created on the basis of that very neediness.

This is why a really big part of the workflow consists of studying these pieces, even though they're generative. I see myself as the curator here, as the librarian, or whatever you want to call it. In this role, you really need to know what you're dealing with. It's not like I have invented a piece of music, and I'm never going to listen to it again - it doesn't work like that. There's a responsibility to get to know the music, too. So that when you're doing the next iteration, you're not just simply repeating yourself.

You could say that a lot of composers are guilty of that: Once they've found their process, they don't even listen to the work they create. I'm critical of that.

Talking about creativity, I was also thinking that many people seem to be afraid that AI has the potential to be more creative than humans, that it will flood the world with creativity. Whereas I would assume that for someone like you, who is sort of inherently always in search for something beyond what you've already done, creativity is already inherently without borders. Working with process and AI-related tools can be useful because it actually limits this expansiveness, which can be stifling as well.

That's a very good point. One inspiration for Kid Arrow was Klaus Schulze and one idea is that there's something you like and would like to have more of. And then the goal is to set up a process that satisfies that need. I, for one, think that's a wonderful thing.

If you think about it like this, it reconsoles this idea of quantity vs quality, which in the mainstream world are seen as being in a constant fight. But that's not the case at all. Maybe that's why people are scared of AI: Because, to their mind, an AI can create constant output of high quality without ever making a mistake. But even then, a human aspect remains: The curation, the choices.

To me, it feels like that actually leads us more and more towards what makes us human. And that's a wonderful thing.

Curation is inherently creative to you. What makes it so?

Take the situation that you're a composer contemplating your next symphony, AI can act like a team of 10 of the best composers who can fill in the gaps of what you haven't written. They'll study all your work to understand how you would have done it. And based on that, they'll come up with a solution that best fits your approach. In the end, however, it's still be you who decides.

It's like these amazing de-noising photo algorithms, where you're kind of recreating details in a photograph that weren't there. You try to fill in gaps, where there's no data.

With Schulze, despite his clearly recognisable style and certain elements he repeated throughout his career, he basically took small steps forwards with each album. Sometimes, I'd wish he stayed put occasionally to draw even more from the same parameters. So that's what process gives you: The ability to fully map a particular feeling?`

Absolutely, using processes like this, we can kind of create and recreate emotional responses that otherwise we would never get. It's almost like this dream that I had of a record store where I used to go to in my dreams, to find my holy grail music. I have now almost found a way to print that record myself, as many copies as I want. And as many different albums.

Kid Arrows is not the first project that I worked on. Last year, there was Beacon of Hope, which is based on a very similar concept. It's just a different style of music. And this year, there was 4Gal. All of this is experimentation which gave me the technical ability to create the Kid Arrow character.

And yes, it would be possible to come up with a different name, give it a different MIDI file to start from, and it would be a completely different thing.



I agree the potential for this is incredible. Because, to me, the difference between art and life is that in life, the goal is to work through something and then get out the other end, hopefully better. But in art, you precisely do not work through it. You put the audience right into the moment of conflict. Once an artist has worked through something, they can't go back to that same place. But the AI can – by delicately changing the parameters to create a subtle variation of the same emotion.

Exactly. And that's a very apt description for Kid Arrow. In this music, there is no resolution, it could go on forever. Sometimes, there will be almost a fake resolution. But you always return to the point where there's no answer to your questions. And that, I would concur, is what art represents.

With all of this in mind, what, to you, is creativity? It's a term that's routinely thrown around a lot but it seems surprisingly hard to pinpoint exactly.  

I think it's very simple. Creativity is the fact that you get up in the morning. The moment you wake up, you can decide whether to get up or not. Creativity is the acceptance of life, of being alive.

That's also why we don't have to be afraid of any machine to ever be a problem in that regard. Because the machine doesn't care if it's alive or not. At the same time, the moment it starts caring whether it's alive or not, it's a human being.

A better word for this is actually creation. Creation itself is creativity.

So making a good cup of coffee is inherently the same as making a piece of music? I ask because some people are very protective about the word creativity.

I think there's no difference. It's just just where you place your attention. What do you attend to? Do you attend to making yourself a cup of coffee? Do you prepare it consciously? Do you put care into it or not? And that's really where the differences start. It's about the intention, the intent.

Like I said, what matters is that there is something that tries to keep the flame within us alive and that's life itself. Constantly creating, keeping ourselves upright, making a cup of coffee or even lifting a glass to your lips and drinking a sip of water - it's all creative.

This creates an interesting perspective on the meaning of the word “artist”.

You don't have to be the painter. You can be the person looking, watching the painting being made, or watching the painting when it's done. With these acts, often perceived as passive, you are always creating.

Are you really?

To me, you are. Because you're interacting with the world with life.

So what makes Mike Oldfield, as someone we both appreciate, “better” in terms of finding melodies, than one of your neoclassical cookie cutter composers?

It's the motivation, you could say, or the motif. If there's one thing that speaks through art, through creation is that you can taste the beauty. You can taste it in coffee, too.

Take the coffee we're enjoying right now. It was great because the barista made it because he loves doing it. And to me, for many of the composers I've criticised,  I think it comes from a different place. And with Mike Oldfield, that motivation is very strong.