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On his debut album, Mamala, the artist TIMEDWIN has created 11 diverse tracks of music, beginning with the soft, easy country of “Break the Dawn” and including R&B, pop, Motown, EDM and more.
Every song is a different style, every song is a fun listen.
And every song lists A.I. as the producer. He wants you to know that up front. TIMEDWIN, which can be said “timed win” or as “tim edwin,” he likes both, is a real person who is creating something new, a genre he calls AIdo, A.I. plus audio.
“A lot of people don’t know what to think about A.I. right now,” he said, “whether it comes to illustrations, social media or, in this case, music.”
“My opinion,” he continued, “is that if you’re straightforward with it, if you’re telling people it’s human and you’re telling them it’s also A.I., if you’re being honest about that, you’re being a good artist.”
TIMEDWIN, living and working in Miami, is a commercial copywriter whose primary client is a cruise ship line. His daily living is writing about cruises, but his passion is writing lyrics.
“I’m a copywriter by trade, but I like to write lyrics by night. I love writing lyrics. It’s a hobby at this point, but I just love it.”
He comes from a musical family. His grandfather was a Navy musician in World War II who survived a torpedoed ship to become an elementary school band teacher in New York. His father is a composer specializing in brass who has composed music for theme parks, including Sea World and Busch Gardens.
TIMEDWIN himself has played musical instruments since he was in fourth grade.
“I think I have an ear for melody, but I’m much better at writing.”
His songs begin with his lyrics, or, in the case of his instrumentals, with a theme.
“What I do is I write a song, and I filter down the most important lyrics. I tell A.I. to write a country song, and include the lyrics ‘break the dawn,’ and then you see what comes back. I may do multiple versions and put it into the music editor. I edit it as I feel is needed to get the message across.”
The term he applies to what he does is “crafted with intention.”
“It’s kind of like having a co-worker where you team up on a project, except in this case the co-worker’s a robot.”
He creates the vocals in his songs the same way. In the process of creating the album, he said, “I listened to tons of music. Tons, I’m telling you. I was listening to country music, I was listening to pop, I was listening to Motown to try to be as authentic as we could be.”
The bots collect as much audio as they can, hundreds and hundreds of songs, and they code and analyze it.
“I tell it, ‘Hey, I want a Motown tune,’ and it will give me back what it thinks sounds like Motown.”
And with his lyrics plugged in, the bot takes all the voices it has heard and creates a fusion voice for the song. After TIMEDWIN has worked it over, he has the Motown track on the album, “Climbing Blue.”
He makes a point about using the word “authentic.”
“Quote me on this,” he said. “A.I. is never going to be ‘authentic.’ It ’s never going to be authentically human.”
But, he continued, if he can get Motown music, with a Motown voice, “that’s going to resonate with you.”
“It’s gonna create an emotion. That’s the goal here.”
TIMEDWIN goes for as much authenticity as he can get, and he seeks authenticity in the diversity of the music.
“I crafted it to represent the regional styles of the nation.” That is another byproduct of the hundreds of hours he spent listening to music.
If there is a flaw in Mamala, it is that the songs are too short. They make you want to hear more.
And, if some of the beginnings and endings are abrupt, that and the brevity are the point.
"I wanted it to be a quick album because we aren’t all blessed with long attention spans, and snackable songs are also really great for sharing. This is basically the trail mix of albums."
Another thing that is not traditional about Mamala is that every song was inspired by Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president.
He can’t donate as much money to her campaign as he wants, so he created Mamala to further her campaign and as an exercise in self-empowerment for his socio-political conscience, and as a statement of his love for America.
“I feel like our nation is super divided right now, and that’s why I started writing initially. I couldn’t make a million-dollar donation to her campaign, but I could do something.”
A musical career is not his goal, but “If this album were to actually take off, I would 100-percent want to continue.”
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