2022 started with a healthy obsession with the late writer Eve Babitz. We read her collection of essays, I Used To Be Charming, and, inspired by her account of her famous nude chess game against Marcel Duchamp, were inches away from collaborating with a certain chess museum on a chess-themed single release. The deal fell apart at the last second (perks of our internet disgrace) so now we’re holding on to the song until the right moment presents itself.
At the end of January Claire published her long-form piece about the great lost woman hacker of the ‘80s, Susy Thunder, over at The Verge, which in of itself was huge, and led to some more huge news we’ll have to keep secret a little while longer. If you’re sensing a pattern of us withholding things from you, Dear Reader, we swear that ain’t it. We yearn to let loose.
Also in January: Rob and Jona scored the Apple podcast Wild Things, about the rise and fall of Siegfried and Roy. If you missed it, catch up! It’s a ride.
Book Recommendation: Exploding The Phone by Phil Lapsley
In February we made a video mixtape called Drek for our friends at the Museum of Home Video. It’s a compilation of video trash: local commercials from our childhoods, corny jokes from even cornier comedies, the best sequences from bad sci-fi movies, and more. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Watch it here.
Our documentary, The Computer Accent, premiered at the prestigious CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen in March. During our week in Denmark, we were artists-in-residence at VEGA, where we shared what we’d learned about Artificial Intelligence and music with a specially-convened summit of curators and artists from across the Nordics and Europe. Rarely have we ever felt more legit.
Book Recommendation: Ways of Being by James Bridle
Jona and Claire spent the early summer in Europe, where Claire spoke in detail about our experience making our album Chain Tripping at the annual Association for Computational Linguistics conference in Dublin. Meanwhile, Rob showed his paintings at Brackett Creek Exhibitions in Montana and New York. In July, we got our masters back from DFA after a decade in hock. Now we own our future!
Book Recommendation: Liarmouth by John Waters
In August Terraform: Watch Worlds Burn, the 500-page anthology of short science fiction stories Claire co-edited with Brian Merchant, was published by MCD Books. She celebrated with launch events in Los Angeles and New York. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, buy it from our friends at Massive Books! They bail people out of jail with the proceeds. In fact, buy all your books from Massive.
At the end of August, The Computer Accent opened the Ambulante Film Festival in Mexico City, and we performed on opening night in a 100-year old opera house—then, a few days later, played our first club show since 2020. Gracias!
Book Recommendation: Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk
In September we kicked off a string of The Computer Accent screenings and performances in the US: in San Francisco, at Gray Area Festival, in New York, where the film ran for a week at Metrograph, and across the Pacific Northwest, at museums, clubs, and festivals, before ending with a final hurrah in Los Angeles with a run at the Laemmle Theaters and a special show and screening at 2220 Arts + Archives.
Book Recommendation: Stay True by Hua Hsu
Finally, to put a button on the year, we released our latest single, “My Idea,” and the accompanying short film, directed by Kailee McGee and starring Alex Karpovsky. The “My Idea” video is our favorite thing we’ve made in a long time. Not just because we think it’s deep, funny, and weird, but because it was a massive collaboration and took us way outside of our usual process. It speaks to our biggest goal for 2023: to transcend (escape?) the limitations of being a band through ever more expansive world-building. Just you wait.
Book Recommendation: The Plenitude by Rich Gold
Thank you for your support this year, and happy new year! 2023 will be better than 2024, so let’s enjoy it.
xo
Claire, Jona, and Rob
Neat list! New yEars! Let's go!