One day I discovered a song on Spotify that sounded very much like the music I usually listen to: jazz rock. Music that is hardly played anymore today.
I am thinking of artists such as Isaac Hayes, Eddie Harris, Lonnie Liston Smith, Roy Ayers, Sly and the Family Stone, IF, Deodato, Curtis Mayfield, Herbie Mann, Wah Wah Watson and The Undisputed Truth.
The real story began when I searched for a song by The Undisputed Truth and Spotify showed me a Psyvelle track as the first result.
My first thought was: “Holy shit, what is this?” I listened to it and had to admit: wow, this is a really cool track.
I searched for more music by this band and found around 196 additional songs. Many used album names associated with famous artists such as Roy Ayers, Sly and the Family Stone or The Undisputed Truth.
Then came day X – the day the songs suddenly vanished. The covers were still visible, but nothing could be played anymore.
That started the search. Could this music still be found somewhere? I searched. And searched. And searched.
Eventually I asked an AI. At first there was a lot of blah blah blah. Then came one useful suggestion: “Try searching on GitHub.”
Someone finally asked the crucial question: “Are you sure this is even a band?”
By now I know that Psyvelle is AI-generated sound. But honestly – it is really great music!
I was told about a streaming service where the music could still be found, but it was full of Chinese characters, required an app and was unnecessarily complicated.
It was possible through cryptic Terminal commands, but I wondered whether the whole thing could be solved with a nicer interface.
So I asked AI again. The answer was basically: “Sure – write a program.”
Done. From a lost music collection, a persistent search and a lot of curiosity came:
The MusicHarvester