THE DALMORE UNVEILS COLLABORATION WITH FOSTER + PARTNERS' BEN DOBBIN ON THE PRESTIGIOUS LUMINARY SERIES AS 2025 EDITION LAUNCHES IN VENICE
Curated in partnership with V&A Dundee, Scotland's Design Museum, this Edition is a co-creation between Ben Dobbin, whose projects include Apple Park and the revitalisation of the Transamerica Pyramid, and The Dalmore's renowned Whisky Makers, Gregg Glass and Richard Paterson OBE.
The Dalmore Luminary 2025 Edition - The Rare - is an extremely rare Single Malt Whisky Aged 52 Years, held in a specially designed decanter, housed within a bespoke sculpture, designed by Dobbin.
This Edition is rooted in creative flow and precision, qualities shared by Dobbin and The Dalmore's makers.
Dobbin's extraordinary sculpture sees the whisky appear almost suspended in time, a fine example of tensegrity. Using this approach, Dobbin designed a dynamic, bold and perfectly balanced asymmetric sculpture, made of bronze, featuring dramatic waves and rods.
The Dalmore were equally exacting when creating the exceptionally rare whisky, taking inspiration from Dobbin's personal tastes, whilst demonstrating their artistry.
The Dalmore Luminary Series No. 3 follows acclaimed collaborations with Kengo Kuma and Maurizio Mucciola, and last year with Melodie Leung of Zaha Hadid Associates.
Ben Dobbin, Luminary No.3 and Senior Partner at Foster + Partners said:"Collaborating with The Dalmore has been absolutely fascinating. Technically, it has been a much more precise - yet creative process than I imagined. Spending time at their distillery really shaped my design process and I wanted to bring to life our shared sense of place, materiality, and how our worlds bridge. This has been an authentic, true partnership, which I am immensely proud of."
Richard Paterson OBE of The Dalmore adds: "This collaboration perfectly adds to The Luminary Series, demonstrating a totally different dimension of what can be achieved when creative talents from different, yet complementary fields, unite."
Gregg Glass of The Dalmore adds:"Meeting Ben was a true meeting of minds. There are actually many similarities between whisky making and architecture, both being a very iterative process, but striving to create something that stands the test of time."
The Dalmore Luminary 2025 Edition – The Rare will be offered at auction via Sotheby's Hong Kong, closing 16 th May, with 100% of proceeds donated to V&A Dundee.
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Global News
06-07-2025
- Global News
There will never be a hot AI-generated band. Or will there? Many say there already is
We've been acquainted with fake bands for years, animated proxies for real-life human meat bags who compose and perform the songs: The Archies, Prozzak, and Gorillaz are just a few examples. If we want to get a little more complicated, there's Japan's Hatsune Miku, a holographic creation capable of performing live concerts using something called Vocoloid singing synthesis technologies developed by Yamaha. But she wouldn't be able to perform without human-created music. What do they all have in common? We know that they're fake. Today… well, it's getting difficult to determine what we're being fed. When we started talking about artificial intelligence a few years back, some openly wondered how long it would take before we had an AI music star. Technically, it seemed possible, if not for the fact that AI is not very intelligent. It's a very powerful form of mimicry, but incapable of the emotion required to write music convincing to the human soul. Any music an AI program generates is based on analyzing millions of datapoints fed to it in the form of music written by flesh-and-blood musicians. Story continues below advertisement I read somewhere — and I'm paraphrasing — 'Until an AI program falls in love and goes through a painful breakup, it will be incapable of writing an original song like Tammy Wynette's D-I-V-O-R-C-E.' There have been attempts, of course. In 2019, there was a brouhaha over FN Meka, a virtual rapper who amassed over 10 million followers on TikTok and picked up deals and partnerships with Xbox and Amazon. FN Meka was even 'signed' to Universal Music before people began attacking the creation for its appropriation of Black culture, the use of stereotypes, and how this thing like to drop the N-word. Universal dropped FN Meka and had to issue an apology. But this thing wasn't autonomous. FN Meka was built through a collaboration between artists, singers, producers, coders, and programmers. But that was then. Now we're living in an era where generative AI is much better at faking things in a convincing manner. Programs like Mubert, AIVA, Soundful, Anthropic, and a dozen others can not only spit out full songs based on simple text prompts but also create a music video to go along with it. And it takes just seconds. Story continues below advertisement Musicians are rightfully concerned about this. Their labour is being used to train their robot replacements without their permission and any compensation. But still, it's just AI, right? And we can tell — feel — when we're presented with an AI song. We humans will never accept full AI artists. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Well… There's been much talk over the last month about Velvet Sundown, a rock band with four grungy-looking members. The group racked up close to 750,000 monthly listeners on Spotify in less than a month, an impressive accomplishment for any act, let alone a brand-new one. They've already released two albums with a third set to drop on July 14. That'll be a total of 39 songs in five weeks. Speculation is that this is a fake creation. Someone (or something) has posted on X blasting critics for assuming that Velvet Sundown was AI. In a taunt to music journalists, the post says, 'Unbelievable the number of journalists who simply don't check in with the **real people** their coverage affects. Guessing most of these 'journalists' are actually just AI!' Another post reads, 'They said we're not real. Maybe you aren't either.' And another: 'Many news outlets are falsely reporting that we are an AI-generated band,' another message states, 'and nothing could be further from the truth! #VelvetSundown #NeverAI' Yet anyone who has attempted to reach the band has been unsuccessful. The domain leads to a very dodgy-looking squatting site promoting plastic surgery. Story continues below advertisement Deezer, the French streaming site, has slapped an AI label on Velvet Sundown, saying their new AI-detection tech has found 'some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence.' Whoever (whatever?) is behind the group was miffed. 'We have reached out to Deezer to get them to remove the AI-generated label which they wrongly applied to our music. They said they will do it.' So far, though, nothing. Music Ally, a music industry site that's been investigating the situation, asked French AI detection company Ircam Amplity to run Velvet Sundown tracks through its BS detector. When the analysis came back, 10 of the 13 songs were declared AI-generated with a confidence score of 100 out of 100. Two scored 98. One hit a semi-convincing 73. Analysis of the artwork and band photos of the group point to them being AI-generated. For example, one group picture features anomalies like an incorrectly stringed guitar and a Stratocaster with no apparently pickups. What's powering this? The best guess from Ircam Amplify is V4.5 of a model called Suno. This points to someone who has mastered the finer points of Suno in a very impressive way. And with three-quarters of a million listeners on Spotify, this could turn out to be rather profitable. But it could also be just a proof of concept for the powers of AI and songwriting, an artsy prank, or just someone with too much time on their hands. Some have even suggested that this could be a clever marketing scheme launched by a real band. Story continues below advertisement The truth? It's a hoax. A band 'spokesperson' has said as much. An 'art hoax,' they said. All this would have been more impressive if Velvet Sundown had music that was in line with today's musical zeitgeist. Instead, it's passable, inoffensive stuff that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the '70s or '80s. It's unoriginal and, if I have to say it, bordering on boring. (Try Interlude on Spotify.) Then again, so is a lot of today's contemporary pop. It would be one thing if Velvet Sundown was an outlier. It is not. Check out Aventhis, an outlaw country artist with no apparent corporeal form. Yet he — it — has over a million Spotify listeners each month to his/its 57 tracks with one song racking up two million plays. (There is some kind of real-life lyricist behind this named David Viera, but he says, '(The) voice and image is created with the help of AI. The lyrics are written by me.' Story continues below advertisement Then there's The Devil Inside, another outlaw country…thing with 700,000 Spotify listeners. A track entitled Bones in the River has nearly two million streams. Everything about The Devil Inside is clearly fake, including the images on the official Instagram page. Want merch? It's available, too. And once you start listening to entities like these on Spotify, don't be surprised if the algorithm throws a few more your way: Nick Hustles, The Smoothies, Velvet Funk, King Willonius, Hyperdrive Sound. So what do we make of this? Is this more AI slop? Will the streaming music platforms step in further? What sort of copyright infringements might be involved? Is this the tip of the iceberg when it comes to music fans embracing music made by robots who have stolen the souls of real-life musicians? Perhaps, though, others will see this as just another music-making tool. We've reached the point with AI where we can no longer trust our eyes or ears. What's real anymore?
Vancouver Sun
01-07-2025
- Vancouver Sun
How the antisemitic meltdown at the Glastonbury Festival unfolded
When Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, a rapper from Ipswich, U.K., who goes by 'Bobby Vylan' came on stage Saturday afternoon at Britain's Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in front of a Palestine flag, there was already tension in the festival's executive offices. It was not yet centred on Bob Vylan, the rap duo who are newly infamous for leading the audience at Britain's leading summer pop cultural event in a chant calling for death to Israeli soldiers, but who on Saturday were a downticket entry on the West Holts stage, which showcases reggae, hip hop, jazz, beats and electronica. The most pressing concern was about a similar protest from Kneecap, the Northern Irish rap trio, one of whose members faces a terrorism charge for flying a Hezbollah flag at a show in London last year. That charge prompted U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to say Kneecap's presence on this year's Glastonbury lineup was 'inappropriate.' Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. So when the British Broadcasting Corporation belatedly said it regrets not pulling its live broadcast during Bob Vylan's anti-Israel provocations, it is not because it did not expect controversy over the Mideast at all. The BBC had already decided not to broadcast Kneecap live. And just last week, BBC Director-General Tim Davie announced new editorial guidelines about hate speech, including that broadcasting it could constitute a criminal offence, if it is 'intended to stir up hatred relating to religious belief.' What followed, then, was predictable if not specifically expected. Avon and Somerset Police have announced a criminal investigation under hate crime law into Bob Vylan's performance, which is classed as a 'public order incident.' 'Free! Free!' Vylan chanted into the mic, to which an audible portion of the crowd replied 'Palestine!' 'All right, but have you heard this one though? Death Death to the IDF,' he said. IDF is the Israel Defense Forces. He repeated it five times, backed similarly by some of the audience, then said, 'hell yeah, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, it will be free.' He also spoke to the audience about working for 'f—ing Zionists' at his record label. Bob Vylan were followed in their performance by Kneecap, but not on the BBC live feed. Festival organizers said they were 'appalled,' and that Bob Vylan's behaviour went against its mission of 'hope, unity, peace and love.' BBC staff have reported feeling ashamed at how long this diatribe was allowed to continue in the live stream. The BBC itself said in a statement Sunday: 'The team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen. The BBC respects freedom of expression but stands firmly against incitement to violence. The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.' The segment has been removed from streaming services, and the BBC has launched a review. The British broadcast regulator Ofcom said the BBC 'has questions to answer' and that it has been urgently investigating what procedures were in place to ensure the BBC complied with its own editorial guidelines. Britain's Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, said the episode was 'a time of national shame' that 'brings confidence in our national broadcaster's ability to treat antisemitism seriously to a new low.' 'It should trouble all decent people that now, one need only couch their outright incitement to violence and hatred as edgy political commentary, for ordinary people to not only fail to see it for what it is, but also to cheer it, chant it and celebrate it,' Mirvis wrote. In response to the fallout, which now includes a ban from the United States, the band Bob Vylan posted a statement that read, in part: 'We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use 'unnecessary lethal force' against innocent civilians waiting for aid.' That is a reference to a news report Friday in the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz that claimed Israel's Military Advocate General has opened an investigation into possible war crimes over the allegedly deliberate shooting of Gazan civilians in chaotic scenes near aid distribution stations. Hundreds of people have been killed in Gaza in the past month attempting to access food aid, according to Hamas-run Gazan health authorities whose accounts cannot be independently verified. After Israel lifted its 10-week blockade of food shipments into Gaza in May, emergency aid has been delivered by the newly created U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose security is overseen by the Israeli military. Speaking to the Reuters news agency, the Israeli military denied the claim of deliberate shooting of civilians at aid distribution centres. It said it was trying to improve the 'operational response' in these areas, and said some incidents were being reviewed by appropriate authorities. 'Any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary,' it said, according to Reuters. International reactions were swift to the live broadcasting of Bob Vylan's 'Death to the IDF' chant. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, announced Monday the State Department has revoked visas for the performers 'in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.' In Canada, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said this was a good idea, and said on social media he had been in touch with Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree to recommend Canada follow the American lead. Opposition Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said Canada should do the same, and tagged the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Lena Diab, in a social media post. This is a good decision by the United States. The incitement by Bob Vylan and his band at Glastonbury have no place in North America. I have been in touch with the Minister of Public Safety and believe that Mr. Vylan's actions should render him inadmissible to Canada. A Public Safety spokesperson said he could not say whether that would happen, and that this would be a question for border services. The Canada Border Services Agency said it was not in a position to comment on this specific case, and said admissibility decisions are made 'case-by-case,' based on information available at a person's time of entry, and by sharing relevant information on border and national security issues with other agencies and countries. It is not clear Bob Vylan has any plans to come to Canada. Their website lists upcoming tour dates in Britain and Europe, and American stops later in the fall, now presumably cancelled. Promotional material for a tour by the American-Canadian rapper Grandson with stops in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal lists Bob Vylan as a co-headliner on American dates, but not the Canadian ones. The group was also dropped by their agent, United Talent Agency. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
Edmonton Journal
01-07-2025
- Edmonton Journal
How the antisemitic meltdown at the Glastonbury Festival unfolded
Article content When Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, a rapper from Ipswich, U.K., who goes by 'Bobby Vylan' came on stage Saturday afternoon at Britain's Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in front of a Palestine flag, there was already tension in the festival's executive offices. It was not yet centred on Bob Vylan, the rap duo who are newly infamous for leading the audience at Britain's leading summer pop cultural event in a chant calling for death to Israeli soldiers, but who on Saturday were a downticket entry on the West Holts stage, which showcases reggae, hip hop, jazz, beats and electronica.
