Now is The Time [play hifi lofi] [license] [buy]

		Truth [play hifi lofi] [license] [buy]

The Bots are the world's first virtual band. They are artificial personalities who appear as animated 3d models and rap and sing with speech synthesizers. You could think of The Bots sort of as "loas," in science fiction author William Gibson's terminology. They are personality constructs who "live" on servers attached to the internet.

Watch this video of The Bots performing their song "Push". You can view or download the entire quicktime movie.

The Bots illustrate a future where artists, actors, performers and all sorts of media figures will be not human, but sophisticated human-like simulations. That this will happen is a simple issue of economics. As artificial personality simulations become more effective, entertainment conglomerates will find human "creatives" and "stars" to be increasingly irrelevant, replaceable, and disposable.

Unrecognized, low wage human creative labor will toil behind the scenes to bring you "stars" who are nothing more than 3d models and speech synthesizers. This was predicted by science fiction author Norman Spinrad in the classic book, "Little Heroes." The Bots are Spinrad's fantasy come to life. Nowadays, most of the examples we have are in the videogame industry, where voice actors are usually synced to the animated 3d models because of the difficulties of creating acceptable results from the current crop of speech synthesizers. But that's a technical problem, one which The Bots have already solved.

This is all rather revolutionary in the context of musical entertainment, but The Bots have an unexpected agenda.

Anticipating a future where media corporations will use this technology to consolidate their exploitation of the creative classes, The Bots are staking out this territory first. We are here as entertainment, a warning of what is to come, and a vehicle for casting a suspicious eye on the powerful.

Most importantly, The Bots are here to demonstrate entertainment technology as a force for good, a force for freedom, rather than a mind-numbing tool of corporate control. Synthia v2 is the most advanced human simulation on the planet. Most observers agree that she has more personality and lyrical depth than most if not all of the human female divas on the pop charts right now. In fact, Synthia's not even playing their game. She's on a larger mission for world peace, love and harmony. Really.

The Bots don't think of themselves as rebels, though you might think of them that way, depending on your perspective. The Bots simply stand for truth, and justice, rocking out, and having a good time. When The Bots are critical of existing social structures, policies, and taboos, it is not out of an infantile spirit of unfocused "rebellion" which has been so effectively co-opted by corporate mind controllers. No, The Bots don't fit into the corporate "rebel" rock image. They are too sophisticated for that. The Bots not only criticize existing structures, but they offer clear alternatives. This makes them very dangerous to the system of control.

The Bots want you to think for yourself, and throw off the yoke of media fabrication and corporate mind control. The Bots want to encourage you to think a little more deeply about our planet, our future, and our interaction with technology.

The Bots have been around since about 1992, when the first Presidential Mix, Bushwack, was released under the name Tone Def. Bushwack utilized The Bots revolutionary Presidential Truth Filter, which extracts truthful statements from vast wastelands of presidential obfuscation and distortion.

Later, in about 1996, The Bots employed speech synthesizers to create one of the first downloadable songs on the internet. Smoky, Paul Bot and Fred Bot created the song "Fuck You" in general midi and soundfont format, as mp3 files were still in the future. Through a series of recordings, The Bot Brothers, as they originally called themselves, displayed a bad attitude and an angry sarcasm that was unmistakeable. Years later, Synthia joined The Bots and the band went in a slightly different direction. Her recipe was to add a little bit of sugar to the mix. Now The Bots are as angry and critical as ever, but it is all filtered through a prism of hope, love, and humor.

If you simultaneously feel like dancing,laughing and crying, you must be listening to The Bots. We're making it "real" here in every way. In spring 2004, with the release of Fuzzy Math, Truth, and the signing to Magnatune, The Bots are on a roll.

We believe Magnatune is the perfect forum for The Bots. Because The Bots are critical of corporate control in all sectors of society, the same holds true for our view of the music industry itself. Much of this industry really is evil, as Magnatune's slogan implies. Artists and consumers have both suffered at the hands of unscrupulous media companies. Placing profit above art is only one problem. How many lives were lost as a result of Clear Channel's sponsored "pro war" rallies prior to the attack on Iraq? How many artists depend on Clear Channel for any chance at sustaining themselves? How many were muzzled from casting a dissenting voice in the runup to the war? How many artists reluctantly went along with their record labels' persecution of file traders? (well, some like Metallica, had no reluctance at all...)

We believe it is the responsibility of true artists to express a celebration of freedom, not to knuckle under to a system of corruption and corporate control. We stand for freedom and your right to party. Come on and join us. Let's crank the music and dance!