Ad Astral Science Fiction Podcast · DJ Burnham

Ad Astral Episode 7: Pandamonium

·57 min·4 clips

Afti introduces Paul Hunter's Fender Stratocaster before The Leonids perform their first number-one download.

1. Ad Astral Episode 7, "Pandemonium," follows a late-21st-century society where popular music is produced by machines. 2. DJ Burnham writes and narrates the story, while Martin Cooper voices Paul Hunter and Laura Whiting voices Afti. 3. The episode asks whether commercially engineered music can replace the irregularity, risk and personal expression of human performance. 4. Flint Baxter uses a cred-chip clothing booth and travels by maglev while managing the Pandemonium Corporation. 5. Afti works at a residential care home and regularly jokes with 85-year-old Paul Hunter about his clothes, hair and guitar. 6. Paul identifies the Pandemonium as the force that replaced spontaneous music and compares its function with George Orwell's verseficator machine. 7. The earlier Surefire system analyzes melody, rhythm, lyrics, cadence, timbre, harmony and emotion to predict chart success. 8. The Pandemonium goes beyond prediction by constructing songs with programmed pitch patterns, repeated rhythms and designed emotional responses. 9. Afti obtains quarter-inch-jack headphones so Paul can play his Fender Stratocaster without disturbing the care home. 10. Paul plays for more than an hour, and Afti realizes that her generation has never watched anyone perform guitar live. 11. Afti's first guitar mistake becomes an improvised musical direction that Paul calls her first piece of music. 12. Paul gives Afti his Fender Stratocaster after she and Alex decide to form a band. 13. Afti and Alex recruit Billy and Josh, create The Leonids and name their first album Retro Rhythm. 14. The Leonids reject major-label offers, establish Rock Salute Records and build an independent release route for new bands. 15. The Leonids' first live video stream attracts more than 50,000 viewers through home multi-med units. 16. Their song "What's Behind" reaches number one in the download charts while the band retains control of its music. 17. The production uses nine voice actors, narrated scenes, original music and licensed tracks from musicians including Mandragora and the Love Gods. 18. The narrative alternates between future-world exposition, care-home dialogue, music-industry negotiations and narrated performance scenes. 19. Listeners drawn to speculative fiction and music history. 20. Listeners seeking action-heavy science fiction may skip.

As heard by us

An old guitar makes a future-world encounter feel quietly startling.

Pandemonium opens episode 7 of Ad Astral, DJ Burnham's quarterly podcast transmission of short stories, with a new story made for the show. It brings Paul Hunter, an octogenarian guitarist, into contact with Afti, from a generation that has never seen live playing.

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Why you'd press play

You want a future-tilted listen where an old Stratocaster becomes the evening's most startling technology.

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